14 DAY TRIAL // Hackers of an Indonesian group called BlackSinchan have breached the systems of a number of Australian law enforcement organizations. The attack comes in response to revelations about Australia spying on Indonesia.
The hacktivists have published names, email addresses and passwords stolen from the databases of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC.gov.au), the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NDLERF.gov.au), and Crime Stoppers.
The information appears to belong to employees of police forces in Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and Northern Territory.
At least one Australian Federal Police (AFP) account has also been compromised.
Some of the passwords are encrypted. However, they’re easy to crack. The members of BlackSinchan say they’ve only leaked some of the information they’ve obtained.
“This is the payback for Spying Indonesia! We Love Australia, We Love our Country! BUT STOP SPYING AT MY COUNTRY!” the hackers wrote next to the leaked data.
They’ve highlighted the fact that this attack was launched strictly in response to Australia’s spying operations, not because they want to become famous.
According to APN, the hackers first breached Australia’s Crime Stoppers website. The AIC and NDLERF websites are hosted on the same server.
The NDLERF website has been taken offline. AIC says it’s aware of the breach, but has refused to provide any details. Government sources have told the media organization that the breach isn’t considered critical.
Indonesian hackers started targeting Australia a few weeks ago after the news on spying operations came to light. Initially, the hacktivists targeted commercial websites. However, Anonymous Australia urged them to stop attacking innocent sites and turn their attention to government websites instead.
Up until now, the cyberattacks against Australian government websites have been limited to distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.