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Tasmania's technology minister says no government-held data has been compromised as part of a hack of a third-party file transfer site by a cybercrime enterprise but added the investigations were ongoing.
Key points:
- Last Friday, the Tasmanian government announced it was caught up in a data theft incident which has also affected Crown Resorts and Rio Tinto, among many others
- Today, Technology Minister Madeleine Ogilvie said she was "not aware" any data held by the Tasmanian government had been compromised in the hack by an international ransomware operation
- She said the investigation was "ongoing", describing it as "technical" and "deep"
Government agencies around the world and companies, including Crown Resorts and Rio Tinto, are reported to be victims, with ransomware gang C10p claiming it had exploited a vulnerability in the third-party file transfer site GoAnywhere MFT.
The Tasmanian government revealed on Friday that it was among those affected by the hack and that personal information "may have been compromised".
Tasmania's Science and Technology Minister Madeleine Ogilvie told reporters today that investigations had so far shown no data had been compromised but added the matter was "ongoing".
"At this time, I can say we are not aware that any government information has been released, but the matter is ongoing," she said.
"This is a process that will continue, and I will continue to communicate with the Tasmanian public as I am able to with as much email as I am able to share."
Ms Ogilvie refused to say what information was transferred by or stored on GoAnywhere, but said it "transfers information, it is not a storage system".
"This is not about holding information; this is about information that moves around between providers," she said.
Ms Ogilvie said the government's cyber security team would "continue to work closely with federal experts".
"Our investigation is ongoing; it is technical, it is deep, and it is important that we get this right," she said.
Ms Ogilvie defended not telling Tasmanians about the data breach investigation until six days after she was made aware of it, telling reporters the threat was only assessed as "credible" on Friday.
"Once the investigations took place, I was kept informed during that week of the investigations, and I was informed, sadly, that it was a credible threat," she said.
Ms Ogilvie said once she had "approval from our team that is doing the investigations to release the investigations that it was a credible threat, I did that as soon as I could".