The Tasmanian Government may have been impacted by another data breach, just two months after a separate incident compromised 16,000 documents. Image credit: Rednose92 via Freepik.
The Tasmanian Government may have been impacted by another data breach, just two months after a separate incident compromised 16,000 documents.
Madeleine Ogilvie, Minister for Science and Technology, has released a statement disclosing that the federal government is investigating the impacts of the illegal release of data from HWL Ebsworth.
The Tasmania Government — as well as other levels of government — are clients of the law firm.
“Australian Government authorities are taking a nationally coordinated approach to investigate the impacts of this incident,” she said.
“While this may take some time considering the volume of data involved – we are taking swift action and will keep the Tasmanian community informed with further developments.”
On 28 April 2023, HWL Ebsworth faced a ransomware attack by BlackCat/ALPHV — a hacking group largely linked to Russia.
The group claimed to have stolen four terabytes of company data, including employee and client information, financial reports, and credit card information.
“We acknowledge and understand the concern that this will raise for our clients and our people. Our focus remains on providing exceptional service and information to them and maintaining the high standards of our firm,” said a representative of the law firm.
The Tasmanian Government was informed of this breach on 2 May 2023.
According to the AFR, the hackers issued a final warning several days ago for HWL Ebsworth to pay the ransom, or they would release the data onto the dark web.
They said that “the first part of data 1.45TB is uploaded and ready for publishing” and “this is your last chance!!!”
There is speculation that this demand was as high as $5 million, although HWL Ebsworth declined to comment on this.
It is believed that they published 1.4TB of data onto the dark web on Thursday night.
It is unclear exactly what data was published.
In April, the government confirmed that names, addresses, and bank statements of Tasmanian parents and students were released online in a separate data breach by ransomware group Cl0p.
This was part of an attack on GoAnywhere MFT, a third-party transfer software used by the Tasmanian Department of Education, Children and Young people.
At the time, the government was criticised for not providing enough details.
