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Hackers Prove Point
by Ben Grubb via sen - SMH Thursday, Jul 26 2012, 10:34am
international / prose / post

Hackers steal data from major Telco to prove point

HACKERS have stolen customer data from the internet company AAPT to highlight the dangers of a proposal to force telcos to store every Australian's web history for up to two years.

The chief executive of the internet service provider, David Yuile, confirmed the security breach, which occurred at 9.30pm Wednesday, in a statement to the Herald yesterday, saying he was ''extremely concerned''. AAPT is conducting an investigation and has promised to contact any affected customers.

Exactly what data was stolen is unclear, and the hacker who claims to have stolen it is yet to release it. He told the information technology security news site scmagazine.com.au that he stole it ''to prove a lack of security at ISPs and telcos'' would expose any web history data collected under the data retention scheme.

A data retention proposal to store the web history of Australians is being considered by the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. It is opposed by internet freedom advocates who believe the proposed scheme is unnecessary, invasive and a risk to privacy. But law enforcement agencies argue that without it, countless crimes would go unsolved.

The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, has urged interested parties to avoid ''hysteria'' and to contribute to the parliamentary committee inquiry instead.

Mr Yuile said AAPT's service provider, Melbourne IT, had alerted AAPT to the security incident on Wednesday night.

''It was brought to our attention … that there had been a security incident and unauthorised access to some AAPT business customer data stored on servers at Melbourne IT,'' he said in a statement.

''AAPT immediately instructed Melbourne IT to shut down the servers.''

He said preliminary findings suggested that two files were compromised and that the data was ''historic, with limited personal customer information''.

Mr Yuile also said the servers on which the files were stored had not been used or connected to AAPT for at least a year.

''We are undertaking a thorough investigation into the incident with Melbourne IT and the relevant authorities to establish exactly the type and extent of data that has been compromised, how the security incident happened and what further measures are required to prevent any future incidents.''

© 2012 Fairfax Media

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