A NSW police cyber-crime squad and IT forensic experts are said to be investigating a recent ransomware attack by hacker group Avaddon.
NSW Labor’s IT systems were among those taken offline after the party fell victim to a ransomware attack in early May.
The ransomware attack is said to work by sending phishing e-mails with attachments that look like images, but in fact contain malware that steals and encrypts sensitive data.
The hacker group is said to then threaten to not only block the organisation accessing it, but to publish the sensitive data. The group also threatens the organisation with distributed denial-of-service attacks that would keep its systems offline.
Information on NSW Labor members said to have already been obtained by the group allegedly includes contracts, licences, passports and employee information.
