A series of hacking attacks took place on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) website on Tuesday (July 09) night which prevented thousands of citizens from participating in the census. The attacks started to hit the website from 7:30 pm.
The minister responsible for the Census has denied any hacking on the site though ABS believes the attacks were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the national survey. ABS's David Kalisch said on Wednesday (July 10) morning the census website had been attacked four times and was shut down as a precaution after the fourth attack. At a news conference on Wednesday the small business minister, Michael McCormack blamed the failure on a ‘confluence of events’ but said the system had not been breached and no data was lost.
The actor behind the attack has not been identified yet and the ABS is still working to prepare the online system to be put back online.
“We apologise for the inconvenience. The 2016 online Census form was subject to four Denial of Service attacks of varying nature & severity,” tweeted Australia census.
“The first three caused minor disruption but more than 2 million Census forms were successfully submitted and safely stored,” read another tweet on Tuesday.
Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said he would launch an investigation into the ABS cyber attacks.
The census website was unavailable again this morning.
At least two-third of the country’s population will fill the online form for the first time rather than on paper.
ABS assured to return the website operation soon to allow people to complete their census forms which have to be filled September 23. ABS has said people will not be fined for not completing the forms on census night.
The minister responsible for the Census has denied any hacking on the site though ABS believes the attacks were a deliberate attempt to sabotage the national survey. ABS's David Kalisch said on Wednesday (July 10) morning the census website had been attacked four times and was shut down as a precaution after the fourth attack. At a news conference on Wednesday the small business minister, Michael McCormack blamed the failure on a ‘confluence of events’ but said the system had not been breached and no data was lost.
The actor behind the attack has not been identified yet and the ABS is still working to prepare the online system to be put back online.
“We apologise for the inconvenience. The 2016 online Census form was subject to four Denial of Service attacks of varying nature & severity,” tweeted Australia census.
“The first three caused minor disruption but more than 2 million Census forms were successfully submitted and safely stored,” read another tweet on Tuesday.
Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said he would launch an investigation into the ABS cyber attacks.
The census website was unavailable again this morning.
At least two-third of the country’s population will fill the online form for the first time rather than on paper.
ABS assured to return the website operation soon to allow people to complete their census forms which have to be filled September 23. ABS has said people will not be fined for not completing the forms on census night.