The recently appointed cyber security coordinator of Australia, Darren Goldie has verified that numerous government departments and agencies have experienced the significant HWL Ebsworth Hack
Last month, a group of Russian cybercriminals operating under the aliases AlphV or BlackCat declared that they had released over 1 terabyte of pilfered data on the dark web. The breach occurred after infiltrating the law firm’s systems in late April..
The data breach was confirmed by new national cybersecurity coordinator, Darren Goldie, who said he was still working with the law firm to understand how many Australians have been affected.
In his first ever statement as the national cyber security coordinator, Goldie shared fresh insights about the data breach at HWL Ebsworth .
According to Goldie, several Australian government entities have been affected by the HWL Ebsworth cyber attack, resulting in the exposure of sensitive personal and government data.
“I am actively engaging with HWL Ebsworth to understand the complete picture of this incident, including how their private industry clients have been impacted, as the data analysis continues.,”
A thorough examination of over 1,000 contracts published on AusTender during the past ten years has uncovered that a minimum of 60 government departments and agencies have utilised HWL Ebsworth”s services including:
- The Defence Department
- Home Affairs
- Australian Federal Police
- Prime Minister and Cabinet,
- Services Australia,
- Fair Work Ombudsman
The agency responsible for the national disability insurance scheme has also been scrambling to learn whether sensitive client information related to appeal cases has been caught up in a large cybersecurity hack on the law firm.
While announcing the appointment of the national cyber security coordinator, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil emphasised that the hack targeting the law firm constituted a highly significant incident.
