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Cyber incident update – Injunction granted

Published 3rd August 2024

LATEST UPDATE

Wattle Range Council has sought and been granted a Court ordered injunction to prevent the access, dissemination, or publication of Wattle Range Council data that has been or may be posted on the dark web by any third party.

We ask that interested parties do not try and access any Wattle Range Council data on the dark web, as this is a criminal offence in contravention of the Court Order.

Obtaining the injunction is part of our ongoing commitment to our community and staff to take all reasonable steps in response to this incident.

As soon as Wattle Range Council became aware of this incident, we launched an investigation to ascertain what information is involved. This work is ongoing, and we will continue to provide further updates to our community as more information becomes available.

We take the protection of our data very seriously and continue to work with the relevant authorities and government agencies in response to this incident.

Thank you for your ongoing understanding and support.

ENDS

Published 19th July 2024

Wattle Range Council is investigating a cyber incident involving access to some of our file drives by an unauthorised third party.

Upon discovery, we immediately commenced an investigation to determine what happened. We have taken steps to secure our IT environment with the support of external investigators.

Our ongoing investigation has confirmed that some Wattle Range Council data has been accessed and taken from our IT environment. A priority of our investigation is to determine exactly what information was involved, and who it relates to.

At this stage, we believe the information largely relates to files taken from a legacy server which primarily contains publicly available information and internal working documents.

We are also aware that earlier today, Wattle Range Council has been named on a post on the dark web, alongside a sample of data which we are now reviewing as a priority. We have monitoring in place to detect any further developments or publication of our data and will provide further updates as required.

In line with government guidance, we urge that no one tries to access the post or the stolen data, which only feeds the business model of cyber criminals and can be a criminal offence.

We are working with the relevant authorities and government agencies in response to this incident to ensure all appropriate steps are taken.

As a precautionary measure, we remind our community of the need to remain vigilant against the potential risk of receiving phishing or other scam communications, in particular from any parties claiming to be Wattle Range Council. Please do not respond to any email, telephone or text messages that seem suspicious.

We continue to monitor the situation closely and will keep our staff and residents updated as our investigation continues.

Thank you for your ongoing understanding and support.

ENDS

Cyber Safety Tips for our community

While we are not aware of any specific instances of misuse of data involved, we remind our community of the need to be cyber safe:

  • be aware of email, telephone and text-based scams and refrain from sharing your personal information until you are certain about who you are sharing it with;
  • enable multi-factor authentication for your online accounts where possible;
  • ensure you have up-to-date anti-virus software installed on any device you use to access your online accounts;
  • do not open suspicious texts, pop-up windows or click on links or attachments in emails – delete them; and
  • do not respond to phone calls asking for remote access to your computer.

More information is available here: