Weekly News 19



Social services minister orders inquiry into credit card system data breach

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/25/social-services-minister-orders-inquiry-into-credit-card-system-data-breach

Image result for data breach

Key data/ Statistical info
  • The social services minister, Christian Porter, has ordered an investigation of a data breach affecting 8,500 current and former Department of Social Services employees, whose personal information was left open for more than a year.
  • The move comes after the Greens blamed outsourcing for the breach in the Business Information Services system which held expenses and credit-card information dating from 2004 to 2015.
  • Compromised data included credit-card information, employees’ names, user names, work phone numbers, work emails, system passwords, Australian government services numbers, public service classifications and organisation units.
  • “The federal government is continually looking to outsource and privatise department and Centrelink services, and here is another example of the associated risks,” she said, citing a recent decision to use labour hire staff to recover welfare debts.
  • “Handing sensitive material to private contractors who do not have the same checks and balances means that breaches are more likely to occur.”
The risk of data breaches is increasing in due to developments in new technology. Almost everything now is digitised from shopping payments to boarding passes for flights. Therefore there is a greater risk of this personal information being accessed by unknown sources e.g hackers. Therefore, due to new developments in new and digital media, data breaches are inevitable. 



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