CANBERRA: The spooky Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have been working jointly to crack down on stolen credit card numbers.
In an opening statement to Parliament last week, the newly installed director-general of ASD, Rachel Noble, said the operation was undertaken using powers that ASD gained in July 2018 to prevent overseas cybercrime.
“ASD, in collaboration with our UK counterpart GCHQ, identified over 200,000 stolen credit cards globally, including over 11,000 stolen Australian cards. These stolen credit cards represent potential losses of over A$90 million globally, and over A$7.5 million domestically,” Noble said.
She noted that GCHQ has powers to prevent cybercrime onshore, whereas ASD does not. However, when taken to task by Senator Jacqui Lambie, she revealed that ASD had used its powers domestically.
Lambie had asked: “ASD is prohibited via legislation from producing intelligence on Australian persons except in rare circumstances. Have any of those rare circumstances occurred in the last 12 months?”
“Yes,” replied Noble, but added that to give an example would involve classified material.
