By Josefine Ganko
A former Western Sydney University student accused of hacking the school’s databases and threatening to sell student information on the dark web was motivated by “a series of personal grievances” against the institution, having escalated her alleged offending from accessing cheaper campus parking.
Police allege Birdie Kingston, 27, engaged in the series of hacks beginning in 2021 when she was a student, and continued until this year, by which time she had left WSU.
Detectives charged a woman for a series of alleged cyber hacks on Western Sydney University.Credit: Police Media
After cybercrime detectives seized computer equipment, mobile devices and more than 100GB of data stored on a cloud server from a Kingswood apartment on Wednesday morning, Kingston was arrested and taken to St Marys police station, where she was formally charged. She was later refused bail at a Parramatta court.
Kingston is facing 20 charges over various counts of eight different offences, including 10 counts of accessing or modifying restricted data held in a computer, and counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and making demands with menace intending to obtain gain or cause loss.
Police will allege that Kingston’s hacking activities escalated from an initial “simple intrusion” to get cheaper parking on campus by accessing an unauthorised discount.
“As the woman gained technical capability, the incidents escalated,” Detective Acting Superintendent Jason Smith said at a press conference on Thursday.
Kingston allegedly then hacked WSU’s systems to alter her academic results, changing a failing grade to a pass, before escalating her alleged hack with a threat to leak private details.
A ransom note was posted on a popular forum on the dark web, police say, that included a demand for about $40,000 worth of cryptocurrency to prevent the leak of confidential student and staff data. The university did not pay the ransom, and investigators haven’t found evidence that the data was sold or published.
Hundreds of staff and students were affected by the incidents.
The hacks were motivated by a series of personal grievances with the university over several years that were “not resolved to her liking”, Smith said.
The university first detected and reported the breach in September 2023, leading police to execute a search warrant at Kingston’s apartment on WSU’s Kingswood campus. Despite her hack being discovered, Kingston increased the severity of the cyberattacks.
“It is quite astounding that someone who has been spoken to by the university and by police would continue to offend, but that’s what we’re alleging,” Smith said.
He said Kingston is facing “very serious offences”, some of which carry penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment. As well as the cyberattacks undermining trust in institutions and impinging on people’s privacy, Smith noted that the “very technical and complex” multi-year police investigation, as well as WSU’s system remediation, had come at a “significant financial cost”.
A Western Sydney University spokesperson said the school “has been working with NSW Police to assist their investigations”.
“These cyber incidents have had a significant impact on the university community, and we are thankful for the support of NSW Police.”
The university has publicly reported multiple cyberattacks in the years since 2021, and as investigations under Strike Force Docker continue, it remains unclear if those incidents relate to the charges laid against Kingston.
“As we’re going through the data, we will be looking for evidence that relates to any other cyber breach,” Smith said.
According to an Instagram post from WSU’s Queer Collective, Kingston was studying a bachelor of electrical engineering. She served as the collective’s general officer in 2024.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.