Victoria court hit by cyber attack, hackers access sensitive data

A cyber attack has hit a Victoria Court system and analysts believe Russian hackers are behind this ransomware attack. According to a spokesperson for Court Services Victoria (CSV), hackers accessed audio-visual records of the court system.

That means hackers may have viewed or stolen the hearing recordings, including witness testimony, from highly sensitive cases. Meanwhile, CSV is now issuing notifications to those whose court appearances hackers have obtained. They will open a contact center for people today who fear they may be affected by hacking records.

Victoria's court system has been hit by a ransomware attack, which independent experts believe was orchestrated by Russian hackers. https://t.co/V8uWSC55BQ
— ABC News (@abcnews) January 1, 2024

The attackers hacked the recordings of the court between November 1 and December 21. However, there is a chance that other hearings before November may also hacked.

The CSV detected the cyber attack on December 21 before the Christmas holiday when staff locked out of their computers and a message appeared on screens “HAVE BEEN PWND”.

Although court staff identified a cyber security hit on Dec 21, Court Services of Victoria (CSV) has released today the details of the cyber attack.

The message directed court employees to a text file in which hackers threatened to expose files stolen from the court system. Furthermore, It also pointed them to a dark web location for instructions on how to restore the files.

Click here to find out why Tk Maxx faces criminal charges

According to CSV, hackers accessed the County Court Victoria recordings for nearly two months which may affected the records badly. All criminal and civil proceedings were recorded on the system between Nov 1 and Dec 21.

Robert Potter is an independent cybersecurity expert. According to Robert, he has seen proof of the attack. Certainly, Russian phishing attacked the court system using commercial ransomware known as Qilin.

He went on to say it is a double extortion approach. They (Russians) extract the data and then encrypt it. So, If you don’t pay, they will disclose your data and you will never be able to access it.