The federal government says it won't negotiate with cyber criminals after a hacking group followed through on a threat to release stolen Qantas data. Nearly six million Australians have now had their personal information leaked onto the dark web, with the hacking group singling out Australia, warning of more hacks ahead.
00:00Cybercrime expert Troy Hunt was on a call with the ABC when he found out he was among the Qantas customers whose personal information has been leaked on the dark web.
00:13I have had someone from another part of the world just contact me and relay information about my personal data, which is absolutely mine.
00:22With 5.7 million Qantas customers' records stolen, he's far from alone.
00:27My data has been subject to that as well.
00:29Qantas was one of 40 global firms linked to the cloud software giant Salesforce whose data was stolen.
00:35After their deadline for a ransom payment passed, the hackers have now released the data on the dark web.
00:41The Australian government maintains a strict policy of not paying ransoms in response to cyber extortion.
00:48In a statement released online, the hackers were scathing, telling the Australian government,
00:53change your laws, change your policies, change something.
00:57We will endlessly attack you till you eventually rewrite your own rules.
01:01I don't think Australia needs to change its ways but we obviously need to constantly adapt because these people are smart, they are relentless and they are after our data all of the time.
01:13Qantas has confirmed it's now investigating dark web channels to confirm what information has been leaked and it's working with the federal government and police.
01:22For most customers, the data stolen was limited to name, email address and frequent flyer details.
01:28Some customers impacted data includes address, date of birth, phone number and gender but Qantas says no credit card details were impacted.
01:37If someone can contact me even outside the context of Qantas and say look I know you live at this address and I know this is your phone number and we are a legitimate organisation offering some service and you need to give us some personal information or log on to a site.
01:51Cyber crime experts warn that the more personal information an attack has about you the better placed they are to execute a scam against you.
02:00So the advice is to be even more vigilant when receiving email or phone communication purporting to be from a company or service.
02:08Affected customers are encouraged to call Qantas' 24-7 support line for advice.
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