Personal Information Of 80,000 Government Employees Stolen In Cyber-Attack

More than 80,000 frontline South Australian government employees have fallen victim to a wide scale cyber-attack. 

Personal records including tax file numbers and banking details have been stolen following an attack on the South Australian Government’s payroll software.

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas initially confirmed on Tuesday that 38,000 employees had been impacted, however, the number has since doubled. 

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Frontier Software, the state government’s payroll software was the target of the cyber-attack. 

The breach has impacted anyone working for the Government since July of last year and excludes only Department of Education workers. 

The information obtained by the hackers includes the first and last names of employees, their date of birth, home address, tax file number, bank account details and more. 

The situation is continuing to be investigated; however, authorities believe the breach involved a ransomware attack launched by Russian hackers from five weeks ago.

In a statement to employees, Treasurer Rob Lucas apologised and revealed the South Australian Premier was also targeted. 

“It’s almost everyone, members of parliament, right through to the premier, also people who serve on government boards and committees,” he said.

“To the extent we can, we are providing the maximum amount of security we can now that this has occurred.”

All employees have been told to assume they have been hacked and to take necessary security precautions such as resetting passwords and installing two-factor authentication.

Despite using Frontier Software for over 20 years, Lucas revealed they will be terminating their contract and will find new software which could take up to six months.

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