Australia's major parties targeted in 'sophisticated' cyber attack ahead of election

[DPennington]

What just happened? Australia's three largest political parties have been targeted by a sophisticated cyber attack only three months before the Parliamentary election in May. PM Scott Morrison addressed Parliament this morning, stating that the attack had been contained and that the integrity of voting systems has been ensured.

Australia's major parties have been targeted by a "sophisticated state actor," Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced to Parliament this morning. First reported by The Guardian, the hackers accessed the networks of the Labor, Liberal, and Nationals parties. The Australian government is unsure what, if any, data was taken during the breach.

The breach was identified quickly, and efforts to negate it resulted in destruction of forensic evidence that may have helped identify the attackers, per Australian Cyber Security Centre head Alastair MacGibbon. MacGibbon stated that the agency was currently unable to answer whether or not data had been stolen because the agencies involved were "acting extraordinarily quickly and very openly, so we are piecing together all of the events."

PM Morrison said there was no evidence of any interference with the electoral balloting system, and that measures had been put in place to ensure its integrity.

The attacks are believed to carry the hallmarks and digital fingerprints of China, although it's possible that another state could be replicating Chinese methods in order to deflect blame towards them.

With the next Parliamentary election only three months away, there is fear that the attackers were able to obtain private correspondence that may be used for the purpose of election interference. This would echo the suspected Russian interference during the 2016 United States election, in which the Democratic National Committee had damaging information released during the presidential campaign.

The attack is believed to have occurred at the beginning of February, which led to House Speaker Tony Smith and Senate President Scott Ryan releasing a joint statement reassuring Parliament that no data had been accessed or taken. This was not repeated by Morrison during his address today, fueling speculation that there may have been sensitive data stolen by the hackers.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/78802-australia-major-parties-targeted-ophisticated-cyber-attack-ahead.html

 

[wiyosaya]

Surprise, surprise!

 

[psycros]

Welcome to the marvelous digital future where the only things you can trust are face-to-face communications or handwritten letters.

 

[Evernessince]

Welcome to the marvelous digital future where the only things you can trust are face-to-face communications or handwritten letters.

Handwritten letters not so much. There are neural networks that can copy your writing style and write letters exactly as you would.

 

[Karlos95]

https://www.facebook.com/eliahi/vid...zgwHrpfMg3QG2ogFEpuCmGXBaCim9LBqU&__tn__=FC-R

Go to the link. It is a video by the bloke who did it.

It was never a cyber attack, that was just a cover up.

The bloke is friends with the PMs best friend and used his circles to obtain the sensitive data.

Go to his page and the proof is there.

Our government is just layers of corruption and I am sick of the old fvcks that still eat their lying **** up and believe everything the media says.

 

[R00sT3R]

Until the Chinese have built up their armed forces to the point where they think they could defeat the US in a Pacific war, these kind of 'cold war' attacks will become the norm.

 

[Bp968]

So I totally see the problem with hackers attacking elections when they create false data and propaganda but the bit about "russian interference in us elections" mentions damaging information about the DNC. And its true, the DNC totally rigged the primaries for Hillary Clinton, she essentially bought the primaries. But somehow the entire dialogue about that particular bit became "russia intervention in elections" and not "Clintons buy primaries" or "DNC leadership corrupt".

As a voter yes im concerned with foreign interventions in elections. But I'm way more concerned with the process being flat rigged by the very not foreign people charged with running a process supposedly designed to allow me to choice my representative. The primaries are where you get to choose your next president or senator or congressman. Its the part of the process that is supposed to keep you from having to choose the "lesser of two evils". If that part is rigged from the beginning than well, that kind of sucks.

Why *that* isn't being discussed, pretty much at all, is disturbing to me.