Griffin Francis, a 19-year-old from Coffs Harbour on the New South Wales north coast, hasn't got a full time job but has earned thousands hacking into tech giants Google, Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, then tipping them off about flaws in their security systems.
"I think of what they haven't done and about finding means to bypass that," said Mr Francis, who is studying a diploma in information technology.
NBN Co, the company building Australia's National Broadband Network, has found itself having to refute reports in the finance press that its networks had been “penetrated” by “cyber gangs”.
While attacks and scans are the lot of any and every network administrator, the company says the reported Trojan infections never got past a couple of user desktops.
Researchers have managed to easily hack the building management system of Googles Sydney headquarters.
The researchers from security firm Cylance were able to obtain the password for the control system for the waterfront Pyrmont office, where it could access the system that controls alarms and other building services.
A survey of business and government agencies has found that many are largely unaware of upcoming changes to the Australian Privacy Act under which large fines may be imposed if consumer data is not adequately protected.
The April survey, commissioned by internet security company McAfee, found that 59 percent of employees responsible for managing the personal information of customers were unaware or unsure of the changes.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Friday it has been targeted by hackers many times, as they reportedly look to access market-sensitive information before public release.
According to newly declassified documents and internal incident reports obtained by The Australian Financial Review, the ABS has been the subject of numerous attacks over the past four years.
The Australian Federal Police have arrested a Sydney-based IT security professional for hacking a government website.
The self-proclaimed 'leader' of hacker movement LulzSec was arrested by police at his office in Sydney late yesterday and charged with three counts of unauthorised access to a computer system.
A 17-year-old youth appeared in Parramatta Children's Court on Friday (5 April 2013) to face charges relating to unauthorised access to computer data.
The juvenile is suspected to be a member of the online issue motivated group "Anonymous" and allegedly committed serious offences on their behalf.
Australia's central bank has been targeted by sophisticated hackers seeking sensitive information which included Group of 20 negotiations, but a bank spokesperson said nothing was stolen.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would not comment on a media report that the malware computer virus used in the attack was Chinese in origin.
Last year, Australia passed the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 as part of the prerequisites to become a party to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. While extending the scope of Commonwealth-related computer offences, it also, controversially, required internet service providers (ISPs) to store customer data on persons deemed under suspicion by law-enforcement agencies. This information is stored without warrant, but only handed over once law enforcement obtains one.
Dylan Wheeler, a computer security and gaming enthusiast who lives near Perth in Western Australia, could very well be in a lot of trouble.
Wheeler, who is in his late teens, is by his own description somewhat of a hacker. He claims to have breached both Microsoft's and Sony's game development networks, extracting software tools used to develop games for the upcoming versions of the Xbox and PlayStation.
