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A Short History of the Coverup
The personal data of thousands of people has been stolen after the Victorian Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA) external contact centre was hacked.
9News understands the EPA advised around 2000 people that they had been affected by the hack in an email yesterday – months after the hack actually happened.
While no financial information is understood to have been stolen, the EPA told people that names, phone numbers and addresses had been.
In its email to impacted customers, the EPA said it takes confidentiality seriously.
“While the accountability for this incident sits with the service provider, EPA has and will continue to work with them to ensure security remains robust and in line with our expectations,” it said.
A small number of EPA employees were also impacted by the hack on the external contact centres, which are managed by Oracle.
The information targetted by an unknown third-party hacker was dated between 2021 and 2022.
The hack took place in April this year, the same month the EPA found out about the breach.
Customers were only notified by email yesterday.
“We have been assured by our service provider and our own internal security team the intruder has been removed and blocked,” customers were told.
The EPA does not know who the alleged hackers are.
