Freight group workers fear account breaches
There are fears scammers could go target the superannuation savings of hundreds of TOLL Group workers after the freight giant became the victim of a cyber attack.
Police & Courts
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TOLL Group staff details have been compromised in a cyber hacker attack on the freight giant.
Authorities are on alert after the discovery of the ransomware breach — potentially affecting hundreds of workers — last month.
The Herald Sun has been told the hackers have put the personal information on the internet’s shadowy dark web.
There are fears scammers could go after $10,000 superannuation withdrawals made available to portfolio-holders during the COVID-19 crisis.
The matter is the subject of an Australian Federal Police investigation running jointly with the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
A Toll Group spokesman said that in early May it logged “unexpected activity on our IT systems” which it confirmed as a cyber attack.
The company disabled its systems and lifted security before discovering ransomware attackers had got into the corporate server, which contained information about past and present employees.
The data included names, residential addresses, birth dates and payroll details.
“We are working closely with independent experts and authorities to investigate and remediate the issue,” the spokesman said. “The incident does not affect all Toll employees and, based on current findings, casual staff are not impacted.”
The spokesman said relevant employees had been contacted and advised how to protect themselves.
“Toll condemns in the strongest possible terms the actions of the cyber criminals, and we apologise to our people for the concern and inconvenience that the situation may be causing them,” he said.
Ransomware is a racket used by criminals who hack companies’ computer systems then demand huge sums in blackmail.
An Australian Taxation Office spokesman said he could not comment on individual companies due to privacy laws.
But he said the tax office was “proactive in putting protections in place for taxpayers that may have had their identity compromised”.
“Where organisations have their data breached, we work closely with them to understand the nature of the data breach and to put in place protections,” the spokesman said.
Anyone who receives a text message purporting to be from the ATO stating that their myGov account has changed, when it has not, should call the ATO on 1800 008 540 without clicking on any links in the message.
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