In a major security blow, the Australian government has suffered a cyber-attack. As speculated by the country’s prime minister, the work is the brainchild of a sophisticated state actor.
According to a statement from the Prime Minister, the targets of the attack were the country’s parliamentary computer network, and the ones belonging to Labor, Liberal, and National parties. The incident is alarming for the federal elections in Australia that are only few months away in May. To clear ideas of the masses regarding the attack, there is no evidence of hands of electoral in the incident, said the Prime Minster.
Kudos to Security Services for Decisive Action during attack, says Prime Minister
At this juncture, to safeguard the electoral system from compromised, a number of measures are in place, apprised the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, at the time of attack, security services acted in a decisive manner to confront it, added the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the indication of data accessed after the attack remains zero. The exact point from where the attack originated remains unclear.
As reported by sources, the sophistication in the attack are unprecedented; however, individuals in the government are not naming suspects. Nevertheless, to furnish some information in the matter, digital fingerprints of China sport the incident, sources add. Not ascertaining anything, the possibility to make the attack look to have originated in China remains in place.
The incident is akin to the one in the U.S. at the time of Presidential election in 2016. It involved hacking data of the Democrat Party, for the suspects to be linked to the Russian government.
