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Hackers have been targeting Australia, causing mass IT disruption

RP

by Ria Pandey

Image: Quartz

Image: Quartz

RP

by Ria Pandey

Both the Government and Channel Nine have confirmed that they’ve experienced IT disruptions – it’s unclear if the two incidents are related.

Channel Nine confirmed that it could not air its Sunday morning news program, Weekend Today, which runs from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm from its Sydney headquarters.

“We wish to inform you there has been a cyberattack on our systems which has disrupted live broadcasts out of Nine Sydney,” the company said regarding the disruption.

Parliament House hacker story_Edited (1)
Image: Parliament of Australia

The Australian Financial Review, which Nine also own, reported that the “[IT disruption] was likely the [result]of a cyberattack [on the media company], the effects of which could last beyond Sunday,” as reported by the ABC.

Furthermore, an IT disruption at Federal Parliament that left many of the building’s occupants without access to email over the weekend, is also being investigated. However, the Government has stopped short of publicly declaring the incident an “attack.”

Sources inside the Government told the ABC that the incident, which was linked to the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS), was not “sophisticated.”

It was further described as a hacker “[trying] so clumsily to compromise the DPS system in particular, that the system itself noticed and shut down, exactly like [it was] designed to do.”

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