Multiple super funds struck by co-ordinated cyberattack
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The news: Several large superannuation funds have been hit by a co-ordinated cyberattack, with the country's biggest retirement fund AustralianSuper reporting 600 members' passwords were stolen in the past week.
The context: The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) said that last weekend hackers attempted to get through the cyber-defences of a number of funds.
While the majority of the attempts were repelled, a number of its members were affected, the industry body said.
Industry super funds Australian Retirement Trust, AustralianSuper, Hostplus, Rest and Insignia were all subject to the attack, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review reported, citing unnamed sources.
AustralianSuper said cyber criminals may have used up to 600 members’ stolen passwords to log into their accounts in attempts to commit fraud over the past week.
Industry pension fund Rest said it suffered an attack last weekend that impacted around 1% of its 2 million members.
The country's largest retail superannuation brand owner, Insignia Financial, said a "malicious third-party" attempted to access online pension accounts on its Insignia Financial Expand platform.
What they said: Commenting on the attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “There is an attack, a cyber attack in Australia, about every six minutes.
“This is a regular issue. We have beefed up funding for the Australian Signals Directorate.
“We have worked and I've sat personally in a round table with all of the big banks, with the big financial institutions, with superannuation funds and others, convened with our security ministers, along with our Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. We'll have a considered response to it, but the agencies, of course, work very strongly on it.”
