NSW Police charge woman for alleged cyber hacks on Western Sydney University

ABC NEWS (Australia)

NSW Police have charged a woman for a series of alleged cyber hacks on Western Sydney University under Strike Force Docker. Press conference with Detective Acting Superintendent Jason Smith, Acting Commander of NSW Police Force Cybercrime Squad.

Transcript

00:00So between 2021 and 2025, the Western Sydney University experienced a series of cyber incidents

00:22which involved the other.

00:24The matters were reported to the NSW Police Cybercrime Squad in 2023 and an investigation

00:31was commenced with the assistance of the University and the incident response teams.

00:39In September 2023, cybercrime detectives executed a search warrant at a student residence on

00:44the Kingswood campus of the University of Western Sydney.

00:48At that time no person was charged.

00:52Yesterday, cybercrime detectives with the assistance of tactical police from the Northwest metropolitan

01:01region executed a search warrant at an address in Kingswood.

01:06At that time a 27 year old woman was arrested.

01:10During that search police located a number of mobile and computer devices.

01:17The 27 year old woman was taken to St Mary's police station where she was charged with a

01:21number of offences including demand money with menaces, fraud and the unauthorised access

01:27and modification of restricted data.

01:31The woman was refused bail to appear at Parramatta local court tomorrow.

01:37The cyber incidents I've referred to are part of an ongoing and sustained campaign which

01:42has caused significant disruption to Western Sydney University.

01:46a significant financial cost to investigate the matters and also to remediate University systems.

01:54The arrest yesterday was the culmination of a very technical and complex investigation

01:58spanning a number of years.

02:02The resolution of this matter really comes down to the tenacity and dedication of the cybercrime

02:06squad detectives involved.

02:08And I have to say that I'm incredibly proud of their efforts to resolve this matter.

02:15We will identify you and we will bring you to justice.

02:22So at this stage we know that a large amount of data was exfiltrated from university.

02:29We seized over 100 gigabytes of data from a cloud server.

02:34We're yet to go through that data.

02:36Obviously it is a large quantity of what you'll be alleging the progression of this offending.

02:41What did it begin with and where did it end up?

02:44So we'll allege that the offending started in 2021 with fairly simple types of intrusions.

02:52One of the initial intrusions was for the purpose of gaining discounted parking at the university.

02:57As the woman gained technical capability, the incidents escalated.

03:06We'll go back to November 2024.

03:09And what I understand was cryptocurrency, to what value were we looking for those demands?

03:16So there was a demand posted on a fairly popular darknet forum in relation to the data and the

03:23demand was for a...

03:25So there's no evidence that it was ever sold?

03:32There's no evidence that was sold or published that we have before us right now.

03:3623 was at a student residence on the Kingswood campus of the University of Western Sydney.

03:42And was the same offender or same person spoken to at that time as we're now seeing today?

03:49At the search warrant in 2023, the subject of that search warrant was the same person

03:54that was at the Kingswood address yesterday.

03:56What do you have to say if police were sniffing about and potentially onto them and then to

04:01continue multiple offences after that?

04:05Well it is quite astounding that someone who has been spoken to by the university and by...

04:11What they were...

04:12Can you tell us what they were studying?

04:13Were they studying, you know, cyber security and information technology at the university

04:18or...?

04:19The particular student involved was a former student of Western Sydney University studying

04:25engineering with an electrical major.

04:26You know, we often see people build their capability just through talking to other people on the

04:32internet.

04:33What was the arrest?

04:34The arrest came about through working closely with the university and incident responders.

04:40We looked at all of the instances between 2021 and 2025.

04:45Did the university become aware of the cyber attacks and then when did they become aware

04:52of which particular student force was involved?

04:56The matter was reported to the New South Wales Police Force Cybercrime Squad in September 2003.

05:012003?

05:022000 Cybercrime Squad in 2023.

05:032003?

05:042000 Cybercrime Squad in 2023.

05:06By which point do you think the incidents have ended?

05:10The person responsible has used a wide variety of cyber techniques to gain access to the university

05:16systems.

05:17They worked out how to reset passwords.

05:20They used a variety to get into the university systems.

05:25And once inside there they've been able to move around laterally and exploit other areas

05:30of the infrastructure including disrupting exams, changing grades, accessing sensitive data.

05:37including obviously communications between people within the university and also the downloading

05:44of large amounts of data.

05:46The alleged crimes against students and staff.

05:51How many victims are we talking here?

05:54It's not just a case of the victim being an organisation, is it?

05:58No, it's not.

05:59It's not a case of the victim just being an organisation.

06:03There are obviously multiple people which often doesn't get said is that cyber attacks

06:10like the ones that we're talking about, they undermine the trust in institutions.

06:15They impinge on people's privacy, thinking that you were sending it to another person and

06:21it was a private conversation but, you know, in these cyber attacks unauthorised modification

06:26of data which carry a penalty of up to 10 years so they are very serious offences.

06:32But they've got a forensically examined over the coming weeks and months that you could

06:37uncover more offending and we've obviously been able to go in and lay 20 charges for the

06:42thing we can give harvest.

06:44Yes, that's correct.

06:45So yesterday during the search, Ryan, detectives conducted digital forensic examination on a

06:51number of sites of data that was maintained in a cloud environment.

06:55We now need to go through all of that data and see if there are any other offences which

07:00we can identify within that data.

07:04That particular incident isn't a part of the charges that were preferred yesterday but

07:09obviously we will, as we're going through the data, we will be looking for evidence that

07:14you can

Category

Transcript

Recommended