Major Australian university targeted in cyberattack

Hackers have accessed the personal information of thousands of people at the University of Sydney in a cyberattack targeting the institution's online code library.

Vice president of operations Nicole Gower confirmed today "historical data files" were accessed last week, including the personal information of about 10,000 current and about 12,500 former staff and affiliates that were at the university as of September 4, 2018.

Hackers also accessed the personal information of 5000 alumni and students as well as six donors from 2010 to 2019.

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Compromised information includes the name, date of birth, phone number and home address of staff as well as their job title and employment dates.

A spokesperson for the University of Sydney estimated the incident impacted about 20,000 staff and affiliates.

"Last week we were alerted to suspicious activity in one of our online IT code libraries," Gower said.

"We took immediate action to protect our systems and community by blocking the unauthorised access and securing the environment.

"While principally used for code storage and development, unfortunately there were also historical data files in this code library containing personal information about some members of our community."

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The university said the cyberattack was unrelated to a student results issue announced yesterday.

The university said it had purged the data sets from its code library and would aim to notify all affected parties by January.

"The university has been working with our cyber security partners doing extensive monitoring of the dark web to assess whether any information has been misused," the institution said on its website.

"We have found no evidence of misuse but will communicate with staff again if we discover any such publication.

"We recommend individuals take proactive steps to protect their information as a precautionary measure."

The university has notified several agencies about the cybersecurity incident including the NSW Privacy Commissioner, Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, the National Student Ombudsman and ID Support NSW.

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