The Reserve Bank of Australia (the central bank) was in 2011 the target of a strong cyberattack originating from China. The hackers were seeking economic information, especially about the G20 meeting in Seoul in the same year, says Australian media quoted by the newspaper La Tribune.
The central bank confirmed Monday, according to the source, the cyberattack, admitting that several of its computers were infected by a malware program. During the attack, a spy software that was developed in China sought confidential information about negotiations of G20 in Seoul, at a time when the exchange rate and foreign exchange reserves of China were on the agenda of the meeting.
“As reported in today’s media, the bank has on occasion been the target of cyber attacks,” reads a Central Bank press release, adding: “The bank has comprehensive security arrangements in place which have isolated these attacks and ensured that viruses have not been spread across the bank’s network or systems. At no point have these attacks caused the bank’s data or information to be lost or its systems to be corrupted.”
A bank official confirmed the cyberattack, but did not specify what type of information was stolen, did not say who were the targets and didn’t want to confirm the hypothesis of Australian media that the attack came from China.
A malicious email message with the title “Strategic Planning FY2012”, sent to management staff of the central bank compromised the computers of several of them. The virus has not spread to other workstations and the affected computers were removed from the network.
An official of the Australian Ministry of Defense stressed that targeting an event of G20 scale by an opponent backed by a foreign government is a genuine and persistent threat.
At least 65% of cyber attacks on Australian computers are made for economic reasons. Hackers are seeking information about Australian businesses, intellectual property, scientific and government intentions, according to the same source.
In early 2011, computers of Australian prime minister and several ministers were hacked. Australian media said that suspicion is that Chinese intelligence agencies were involved in the cyberattack, but the government did not confirm this, while China regularly rejects such allegations. Moreover, Beijing Sunday accused the United States of being the main source of cyberattacks against the communist country.
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