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‘Concern’ over leak of phone numbers of Prime Minister and Opposition Leader
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‘Concern’ over leak of phone numbers of Prime Minister and Opposition Leader

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Authorities are investigating a “worrying” data breach that resulted in the public release of dozens of high-profile phone numbers, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and opposition leader Sussan Ley.
The information is said to have been obtained by a third-party data site that uses artificial intelligence to aggregate sites, including social media profiles, for user data. It is then collected to create a digital phone book.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said the government was aware of the breach.

“We have informed the authorities and we are working on that. But there is clearly concern,” he told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles said authorities were investigating the breach. Source: MONKEY / James Ross

Initial reports from Australian website Ette Media claimed that the data of major party leaders as well as Marles and former Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been ‘deleted’ by the US site from professional networking platforms including LinkedIn.

It prompted Ley’s office to ask LinkedIn to “remove the information” from the opposition leader’s profile.
“This is clearly concerning and we have contacted LinkedIn to understand what has happened here. We await their response,” an opposition spokesperson said.

LinkedIn told SBS News that the use of personal data by third parties is prohibited, with the platform taking several measures to protect users.

“In addition to the technology and teams we have long had in place to stop unauthorized data scraping, we continue to invest in new defenses and take legal action when necessary to detect and prevent our members’ information from being used without their consent,” a LinkedIn spokesperson said in a statement.
The security breach follows new data from the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), which shows that 42 percent of cyber incidents last year were the result of stolen credentials.

The agency responsible for detecting and disrupting malicious cyber threats published its annual report on Tuesday, showing an 11 percent increase in cyber incidents.

ASD Director General Abigail Bradshaw said the way cybercriminals and state actors gain access to organisations, critical infrastructure and businesses is changing.
“Networks are increasingly not being hacked, but are being breached via compromised or stolen credentials to gain unauthorized access,” she said.
In nearly half of incidents involving large organizations, access was gained using real usernames and passwords, often stolen or purchased by cybercriminals on the dark web.
Since the access is real, rather than a hack, it’s harder to track.
ASD urged Australians to opt out of using passwords and replace them with multi-factor authentication. in addition to a range of other measuresto keep their families’ data safe.

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