Western Sydney has experienced its second major data breach for the year, with the University yesterday announcing that a hacker accessed its Student Management System and the University’s Data Warehouse in August.
The hacker gained access to the system on 14 August and was not detected until 27 August, accessing, “names, addresses, University-issued email addresses, student identification numbers, tuition fee information (including fees deferred to HELP/HECS), student admission and enrolment data (including subject, results and progression information), and student demographic data (including nationality, Indigenous status, country of birth, citizenship status, gender and date of birth)”.
The University is still investigating the hack alongside police, and conceded that additional personal information may also have been accessed, however it has confirmed that no student records appear to have been altered.
Around 7,500 individuals were affected by an breach of the University’s Isilon storage platform in January, with around 580 terabytes of data accessed across 83 of 400 storage directories. The first hack was revealed in May,
“On behalf of the University, I unreservedly apologise for this incident and the impact it is having on our community,” Vice-Chancellor George Williams said.
“We are committed to supporting our students, staff and stakeholders, and have several support services in place.”
The University has not received any threats in relation to the breach and has promised ongoing upgrades to cyber security.
