June 22, 2023
PETER STEFANOVIC: There are fears customers' banking details may have been compromised in a recent data breach on law firm HWL Ebsworth. NAB has confirmed data exposure after Russian hackers posted scarce details online. ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac say they are working alongside the law firm to determine what data may have been compromised and to mitigate any further breaches. Let's bring in the Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson. James, good to see you. So, what are your thoughts and concerns about this one?
JAMES PATERSON: Good morning, Pete. Well, there's a number of things that are concerning about the HWL Ebsworth attack, some of which are similar to previous attacks and some which are different. The similarity is it again appears that individual Australians’ private information might have been exposed on the web by a ransomware gang, probably operating out of Russia.That's what's similar to previous attacks. What's different is that HWL Ebsworth is a law firm that acts for a number of government clients. It represents a number of government agencies, including in the national security sphere, and it appears that it held on their behalf, because it represented them in legal proceedings, sensitive information of highly, sometimes classified, nature. And the risk that that has spilled out into the public is a very serious thing indeed and needs very swift action by the government.
Unfortunately, we've got two problems. One is the Home Affairs Minister said in February that she would appoint within a month a cyber security coordinator to handle the fallout of attacks like this. Well, its nearly five months later, and we still don't have that person on the ground responding to this. Secondly, we've received virtually no information out of the government at all about what has happened in this attack, about what government agencies have been affected, about what information has been lost, and that's been exacerbated by HWL Ebsworth taking out an injunction in the court which has prevented potentially the victims of this from finding out what of their private information has already been uploaded to the dark web.
STEFANOVIC: Okay. So, we don't know what information has been compromised at this stage?
PATERSON: No, we don't. We do know that the hackers have uploaded a portion of the four terabytes of data that they stole as proof of what they have and that they are threatening to release the remaining part unless a ransom is paid. But because of this injunction, it potentially is a crime for you or I to go and look at that information to try and download it.And we're not exempt just because we're a victim or journalist or anyone else is looking at this. So, it is a very unorthodox move by the firm. I'd be interested to know whether the federal government has sanctioned that, whether they've encouraged that, whether they're concerned about that, because it's not normally how victims of cyber attacks respond.
STEFANOVIC: A couple of other issues at this morning, James. 70,000 people have now joined Origin's financial hardship program because they can't afford to pay their bills. How alarming is that?
PATERSON: It's very distressing news, Pete, and I fear that there'll be many more in the months ahead as interest rates continue to rise,as mortgage rates continue to rise, as rent and other cost of living pressures continue to rise. And we've known for some time that this time was coming, that there was going to be real pain for the Australian people. Despite the Prime Minister's promise before the election that he would lower their energy prices,clearly those 70,000 people are 70,000 pieces of evidence that he didn't tell the truth before the election, and he's made no apology to them for his failure to deliver on that. Nor is the government really doing any heavy lifting at all to get inflation under control. They just seem to think that's the Reserve Bank's job. And what that means is higher interest rates for longer and more pain for Australian households for longer. And I'm really worried there'll be people in very desperate hardship in the months ahead.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, final one here. The Government's shaky over the Voices remit, James, this week. It says it the Voice won't be able to advise on things like moving the date such as Australia Day. Well, it can advise, but the Government can't accept that. Are you so sure that that's how it will play out?
PATERSON: Well, Linda Burney was very clearly wrong when she said in the House of Representatives that things like abolishing the date of Australia Day or indeed getting rid of the flag or the anthem would be outside the remit of the Voice to Parliament. It is very clearly within its power.There's nothing in the constitutional amendment which limits it, and a number of independent and eminent constitutional experts have confirmed that that's the case. And let's remember that while the government is saying now that if the Voice recommended that that they wouldn't accept it, Anthony Albanese himself has said only a few months ago that it would be a very brave government that would refuse to act on the advice of the Voice. So those two things can't be true. If the Voice says, 'let's abolish Australia Day.' Why wouldn't the Albanese Government live up to his own personal commitment that he'd have to be very brave to ignore?
STEFANOVIC: James Paterson, appreciate your time. Thank you.
ENDS
