Australian Superannuation Funds Hit by Cyber Attacks, With Members' Money Stolen
A number of Australian superannuation funds have been hit with suspected cyber attacks, with members of one fund losing $500,000 between them in retirement savings. Australian Super has been hit with 600 attempted cyber attacks in the past month, ABC News understands, with four members losing that combined half a million dollars. Australian Super is the nation's biggest retirement fund, with at least 3.5 million members and billions of dollars of their superannuation invested.
Several Australian Super members have told ABC News they cannot currently access their accounts, or that it is difficult or slow to access their accounts. Australian Super has been asked whether private data has been stolen, too. The industry body that represents superannuation funds, Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), said in a statement that other funds had experienced attempted cyber attacks over the weekend.
"While the majority of the attempts were repelled, unfortunately a number of members were affected," AFSA said in its statement. "Funds are contacting all affected members to let them know and are helping any whose data has been compromised." Rest, Host Plus, Insignia and Australian Retirement were also impacted. "At this stage, we believe that some of our members may have had limited personal information accessed and we are currently working through this with those impacted members," Rest said in a statement.
The prime minister just told reporters that he was aware of the cyber attacks. "I have been informed about that," Anthony Albanese said while on the campaign trail. "We will respond in time. We are considering what has occurred. Bear in the mind, the context here, there is a cyber attack in Australia roughly every six minutes. This is a regular issue."
Anthony Albanese addresses cyber attack on Australian superannuation funds. He reiterated federal funding to tackle cyber criminal activity, which was boosted in the wake of a wave of cyber attacks on major companies including Optus, Medibank and Latitude. In the case of Medibank, the health insurer's members' private and sensitive details were posted to the dark web. The impacted superannuation funds are working with the federal bureau that tackles cyber security, the National Cyber Security Coordinator.