Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Hackers hit Gillard, ministers' computers

Thousands of emails are believed to have been accessed in the cyber attacks.

The parliamentary computers of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and at least two other senior ministers are suspected of being hacked.

Gillard's parliamentary computer, along with those of several cabinet ministers including Foreign minister Kevin Rudd and Defence minister Stephen Smith were believed to have been compromised, News Ltd newspapers report.

Thousands of emails are believed to have been accessed in the cyber attacks.

Four Australian government sources confirmed with the newspapers they had been told Chinese intelligence agencies were part of a list of suspected hackers.

US intelligence officials alerted their Australian counterparts and News Ltd believes ASIO has started an investigation.

The cyber attacks are believed to be on the Australian Parliament House email network, the less secure of two networks used by MPs.

Ministers use a departmental network for more high security communications.

The newspaper reports senior sources in the government confirmed the computers were subjected to the espionage for more than a month from sometime last month.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland would neither confirm nor deny the attacks.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: ASIO, Attorney-General, etwork

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: government, hackers, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, security, security breach
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Managing Trust - Data protection and compliance for financial services
    If it’s becoming something of a cliché that the financial services industry is one of the world’s most heavily regulated, that’s largely because it’s true. Data retention and archiving, authentication and authorisation, data loss prevention and privacy regulations compete with demands for transparency and accountability, while market imperatives calling for multiple service channels delivered over a broad spread of technologies add to the pressure. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Risk management: ensuring the security of your hosted information
    Organisations of all sizes are becoming victims to cybercriminals, data breaches, information theft and security risks. But before you go out and spend a fortune on security software, solutions and consultants, the starting point is to identify and measure your business’s exposure to those risks. In this whitepaper, “Exploring, Identifying and Measuring” risk, we examine how to identify risk and share an approach for identifying and measuring risk in your organisation.
    Learn more »
  • Sun Blade 6000 Modular System: Power and Cooling Efficiency
    Most IT organizations are struggling with the need to deploy ever more applications in the fixed space, power, and cooling envelope of their data centers, the ability to save even a hundred watts per system quickly turns into more breathing room for future applications and the servers to run them. Read on.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments