A RECENT national cyber attack has triggered a warning from a leading Limestone Coast tech company, urging regional residents to be more vigilant when using the internet and tech devices.
Last week, the Australian Government announced the country’s governments and some businesses were targeted by a sophisticated and sustained state-based cyber intrusion, leading to Prime Minister Scott Morrison warning individuals and organisations to take protective measures.
Technology Development Research and Support (TDRS) managing director Brett Pittard said the region had not been immune from increasing reports nationally of cyber attacks, with two deceptive methods becoming more common over the last three months.
Mr Pittard said most cases involved email hijacking or server data corruption, which had led to some businesses losing large volumes of essential data and creating thousands of dollars in costs.
Servicing over 600 clients across the Limestone Coast and western Victoria, Mr Pittard said he had seen at least eight instances of online ambushes recently but said they were not unusual and had occurred for a number of years.
“It can really be as simple as a random email which tells somebody they need to change their password,” Mr Pittard said.
“People may fall for that and enter all their details and straight away they can access everything.
“If they do not know enough about technology, most people will generally just leave it which is what they hope for.”
As email security has improved over the years, Mr Pittard said attackers have moved towards becoming socially savvy when targeting an individual.
“They know they may not be able to get through a spam filter, but could if they pretend to be another person with a basic email and no dodgy links,” he said.
“Although there has not been a huge increase all together, we have noticed a ten-fold increase in attempts for a website server we look after.
“It may be because people are more aware and know its happening so they are beginning to identify it more as well.”
Mr Pittard said data corruption was also a common way victims could be targetted and usually involved finding a vulnerability in a server.
During the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, Mr Pittard said vulnerabilities increased with people working from home due to remote access technology, which could have also increased the risks of online attacks.
Mr Pittard said a silver lining of last week’s national cyber attack was it had made people aware of the threat.
“There are a lot of people who may not realise their entire business could stop tomorrow if they were to lose everything,” he said.
“We see this as a great opportunity to raise awareness and want to push it more so people are conscious of the risks.”
