Corrupt NZ cop Mike Bush, Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police must resign

The colony’s police forces are corrupt institutions, where many of their members get away with criminal activity, deliberately under reported by the mainstream media.

For those cases that do get out into the public domain, their ‘brethren’ in the legal system will support them.

Victoria has many eligible (corrupt) cops that could have taken the ‘top job’ as Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, but they had to import one Michael Dennis Bush from over the Tasman Sea.

How can anyone trust the ‘top cop’, if he defrauded the public purse more than once?

What is the acceptable dollar amount or figure Victoria Police can defraud from the public purse?

Maybe ZERO?

What’s worse is that the people in the government of Victoria ‘support’ this kind of action with no reprimand in sight.

What a pathetic message is sent out to the community.

The beginnings of the colony’s police forces consisted of not honourable men, but rather ‘criminals’, where it seems to still hold true today, keeping in mind that Australia is still a colony today, where the colonialist’s descendants are in charge, or even the ‘faceless men’.

Source:supplied

Facebook SCAMS its users, 15 billion scam ads a day!

Internal documents have revealed that Meta has projected it earns billions from ignoring scam ads that its platforms then targeted to users most likely to click on them.

In a lengthy report, Reuters exposed five years of Meta practices and failures that allowed scammers to take advantage of users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Documents showed that internally, Meta was hesitant to abruptly remove accounts, even those considered some of the “scammiest scammers,” out of concern that a drop in revenue could diminish resources needed for artificial intelligence growth.

Instead of promptly removing bad actors, Meta allowed “high value accounts” to “accrue more than 500 strikes without Meta shutting them down,” Reuters reported. The more strikes a bad actor accrued, the more Meta could charge to run ads, as Meta’s documents showed the company “penalized” scammers by charging higher ad rates. Meanwhile, Meta acknowledged in documents that its systems helped scammers target users most likely to click on their ads.

“Users who click on scam ads are likely to see more of them because of Meta’s ad-personalization system, which tries to deliver ads based on a user’s interests,” Reuters reported.

Internally, Meta estimates that users across its apps in total encounter 15 billion “high risk” scam ads a day. That’s on top of 22 billion organic scam attempts that Meta users are exposed to daily, a 2024 document showed. Last year, the company projected that about $16 billion, which represents about 10 percent of its revenue, would come from scam ads.

“High risk” scam ads strive to sell users on fake products or investment schemes, Reuters noted. Some common scams in this category that mislead users include selling banned medical products, or promoting sketchy entities, like linking to illegal online casinos. However, Meta is most concerned about “imposter” ads, which impersonate celebrities or big brands that Meta fears may halt advertising or engagement on its apps if such scams aren’t quickly stopped.

“Hey it’s me,” one scam advertisement using Elon Musk’s photo read. “I have a gift for you text me.” Another using Donald Trump’s photo claimed the US president was offering $710 to every American as “tariff relief.” Perhaps most depressingly, a third posed as a real law firm, offering advice on how to avoid falling victim to online scams.

Meta removed these particular ads after Reuters flagged them, but in 2024, Meta earned about $7 billion from “high risk” ads like these alone, Reuters reported.

Sandeep Abraham, a former Meta safety investigator who now runs consultancy firm Risky Business Solutions as a fraud examiner, told Reuters that regulators should intervene.

“If regulators wouldn’t tolerate banks profiting from fraud, they shouldn’t tolerate it in tech,” Abraham said.

Meta won’t disclose how much it made off scam ads

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters that its collection of documents—which were created between 2021 and 2025 by Meta’s finance, lobbying, engineering, and safety divisions—“present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams.”

Stone claimed that Meta’s estimate that it would earn 10 percent of its 2024 revenue from scam ads was “rough and overly-inclusive.” He suggested the actual amount Meta earned was much lower but declined to specify the true amount. He also said that Meta’s most recent investor disclosures note that scam ads “adversely affect” Meta’s revenue.

“We aggressively fight fraud and scams because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it, and we don’t want it either,” Stone said.

Despite those efforts, this spring, Meta’s safety team “estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the US,” Reuters reported. In other internal documents around the same time, Meta staff concluded that “it is easier to advertise scams on Meta platforms than Google,” acknowledging that Meta’s rivals were better at “weeding out fraud.”

As Meta tells it, though seemingly dismal, these documents came amid vast improvements in its fraud protections. Stone told Reuters that “over the past 18 months, we have reduced user reports of scam ads globally by 58 percent and, so far in 2025, we’ve removed more than 134 million pieces of scam ad content,” Stone said.

According to Reuters, the problem may be the pace Meta sets in combating scammers. In 2023, Meta laid off “everyone who worked on the team handling advertiser concerns about brand-rights issues,” then ordered safety staffers to limit use of computing resources to devote more resources to virtual reality and AI. A 2024 document showed Meta recommended a “moderate” approach to enforcement, plotting to reduce revenue “attributable to scams, illegal gambling and prohibited goods” by 1–3 percentage points each year since 2024, supposedly slashing it in half by 2027. More recently, a 2025 document showed Meta continues to weigh how “abrupt reductions of scam advertising revenue could affect its business projections.”

Eventually, Meta “substantially expanded” its teams that track scam ads, Stone told Reuters. But Meta also took steps to ensure they didn’t take too hard a hit while needing vast resources—$72 billion—to invest in AI, Reuters reported.

For example, in February, Meta told “the team responsible for vetting questionable advertisers” that they weren’t “allowed to take actions that could cost Meta more than 0.15 percent of the company’s total revenue,” Reuters reported. That’s any scam account worth about $135 million, Reuters noted. Stone pushed back, saying that the team was never given “a hard limit” on what the manager described as “specific revenue guardrails.”

“Let’s be cautious,” the team’s manager wrote, warning that Meta didn’t want to lose revenue by blocking “benign” ads mistakenly swept up in enforcement.

Meta should donate scam ad profits, ex-exec says

Documents showed that Meta prioritized taking action when it risked regulatory fines, although revenue from scam ads was worth roughly three times the highest fines it could face. Possibly, Meta most feared that officials would require disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, rather than fines.

Meta appeared to be less likely to ramp up enforcement from police requests. Documents showed that police in Singapore flagged “146 examples of scams targeting that country’s users last fall,” Reuters reported. Only 23 percent violated Meta’s policies, while the rest only “violate the spirit of the policy, but not the letter,” a Meta presentation said.

Scams that Meta failed to flag offered promotions like crypto scams, fake concert tickets, or deals “too good to be true,” like 80 percent off a desirable item from a high-fashion brand. Meta also looked past fake job ads that claimed to be hiring for Big Tech companies.

Rob Leathern previously led Meta’s business integrity unit that worked to prevent scam ads but left in 2020. He told Wired that it’s hard to “know how bad it’s gotten or what the current state is” since Meta and other social media platforms don’t provide outside researchers access to large random samples of ads.

With such access, researchers like Leathern and Rob Goldman, Meta’s former vice president of ads, could provide “scorecards” showing how well different platforms work to combat scams. Together, Leathern and Goldman launched a nonprofit called CollectiveMetrics.org in hopes of “bringing more transparency to digital advertising in order to fight deceptive ads,” Wired reported.

“I want there to be more transparency. I want third parties, researchers, academics, nonprofits, whoever, to be able to actually assess how good of a job these platforms are doing at stopping scams and fraud,” Leathern told Wired. “We’d like to move to actual measurement of the problem and help foster an understanding.”

Another meaningful step that Leathern thinks companies like Meta should take to protect users would be to notify users when Meta discovers that they clicked on a scam ad—rather than targeting them with more scam ads, as Reuters suggested was Meta’s practice.

“These scammers aren’t getting people’s money on day one, typically. So there’s a window to take action,” he said, recommending that platforms donate ill-gotten gains from running scam ads to “fund nonprofits to educate people about how to recognize these kinds of scams or problems.”

“There’s lots that could be done with funds that come from these bad guys,” Leathern said.

Source:arstechnica

‘Oppression’: ATO investigator found to have lied in fraud case

NEVER TRUST THE AUSTRALIAN TAX OFFICE!

Corruption in government departments is rife, where this is only one example that has made it out into the public news media.

There is much more corruption that is (deliberately) not reported.

An investigator with the Australian Taxation Office has been found to have lied and tampered with evidence during a lengthy legal battle against a Queensland medical researcher who was accused of fraud.

The researcher was interviewed by the ATO, and was advised to answer questions and was told if she did not, she would be committing an offence. She therefore did not have a right to silence.

The ATO’s conduct was lambasted as “oppression” by Justice Paul Smith, who ordered for her fraud case to be stayed on Friday.

Smith handed down his judgment in the years-long case, involving the medical researcher, referred to as Julie Clarke in documents, after she requested a pseudonym.

Clarke had wished to develop a therapeutic using the chemical (R)-3-hydroxybutyric acid (also known as D-3-hydroxybutyric acid). It was intended to treat conditions such as cancer and obesity.

The case involved investor group The Brisbane Angels, who decided to invest $185,000 in 2016. Clarke had approached the group for funding relating to cancer trials. Brisbane Angels said they were not interested, but would consider it if it was a weight-loss drug. Two promising pilot studies were done and the $185,000 was invested.

The group later withdrew from the project after being informed it would be a “protracted and expensive process”.

There was a civil dispute between Clarke and the group, with the former wanting the return of the intellectual property, and the investors wanting their money.

An application was lodged with the ATO the following year, with Clarke claiming she had spent $11,380,900, on product development. The ATO considered the claim to be false, and believed she only spent $11,380.90. The ATO then proceeded to audit the case, and Clarke was interviewed.

Smith said the researcher was directed by the ATO to answer questions; otherwise she would be committing an offence, and as such she did not have a right to silence.

The court found that the substantial purpose of the interview was to question Clarke about the alleged fraud, which is a criminal offence.

Smith concluded that Clarke was unlawfully subjected to a hybrid audit and criminal interview, and she had been deprived of her forensic choices in the way in which she could defend herself at trial.

Court documents said both the ATO and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had improperly brought two prosecutions against Clarke, and as such the proceedings had become oppressive, and both included the use of an unlawful compulsory interview.

Court documents state ATO investigator Anthony Rains obtained documents from Brisbane Angels in 2018, and formed the view Clarke had defrauded them of the $185,000, believing it was spent on a personal loan and holidays.

The court found Rains referred the state fraud matter to the Queensland Police Service without any complaint by Brisbane Angels and failed to provide exculpatory material to police, including that Clarke was entitled to a consulting fee and other information that showed the money had been spent on legitimate expenses.

In his judgment, Smith said Rains engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, including that he deliberately altered the expenses sheet Clarke sent to Brisbane Angels, and provided misleading information to obtain search warrants, which subsequently misled several judicial officers.

The court found he also lied in a briefing note to the Queensland Bar, and failed to disclose emails between himself and Brisbane Angels before the state fraud trial in 2020.

Smith said: “I consider Mr Rains exceeded his authority by being heavily involved in the investigation of the state charge and it is doubtful there was ever a case to answer as alleged. I have found an abuse of process occurred here.”

Smith said Clarke was subjected to considerable stress and expense in having to defend the state charge whilst also defending the Commonwealth case.

He said Clarke must have been “absolutely fearful of being unjustly convicted on the state fraud charge which would carry a sentence of several years in jail and she must have felt no one was listening to her”.

He also said: “The court should not tolerate this type of conduct by this ATO investigator or the ATO more broadly, or any government authority for that matter.”

Smith said the justice system would be put at significant risk if courts could not rely on the integrity of government investigators and institutions.

Smith ordered for the prosecution against Clarke to be stayed.

Source: Brisbane Times

Taxpayers ripped off with the Bureau of Meteorology’s $4m face lift

MANY of Australia’s tenders (state and federal) for works are awarded fraudulently to people in ‘money for mates’ scams.

Australian taxpayers have paid $4 million for an ‘updated’ bom.gov.au front page.

The backlash to this new front page was overwhelming, where it was also claimed that lives can be lost as result of the deliberately flawed representation of weather maps.

How could such a change be approved prior to going live on the web?

Show us the proof that the changes were consulted with the community?

NO INQUIRY?

What really needs to happen now is an inquiry into the machinations of the federal government's documentation that led to the creation of the new front page.

Basically in other words, full transparency as to how the public was ripped off of $4million dollars and in reality a person or persons who made this call to be removed from office.

This is a gross misuse of public funds.

We understand that a price of one twelfth of what was paid is still too much for that type of work.

In any event since the colonial government does not operate with transparency but rather with corruption and secrecy, it is very doubtful that anyone will lose their job over this fiasco. 

The lie of anonymous communications with authorities

What many people may not comprehend is that Australians live under a totalitarian regime.

'Normal' modes of communication, by default are far from anonymous.

Even if you hide your (mobile) number via the appropriate menu setting it is not hidden from the authorities.

Australia is a signatory to the Five Eyes data hoovering surveillance network, where all our digital traffic is logged and stored to be later used against the people.

To advertise or inform the general public that you can "Tell us anonymously" is a deliberately blatant lie, where the 'Shopping Centre Council of Australia' and 'Crime Stoppers' should be sued in a competent court of law for false advertising.

Will this ever happen? 

Most definitely not, and if that action was to occur the Anglo-Masonic legal system would not let anyone from the pleb pool sue successfully.

That's life in a (penal) colony.

You'll have better luck suing in a place touted as 'the land of the free'.

 

Proclamation of the Australia Act 1986

This post is to provide clarity on the enactment of the Australia Act 1986, many people lay claim the Queen assented (signed) the Australia Act.

This is a misinterpretation of historical facts, the Queen did not provide her personal assent to the Australia Act 1986(Cth), nor did Bob Hawke assent to the Australia Act 1986.

The act followed constitutional requirements set out in section 58 of the Constitution Act 1900 (Royal Assent).

See Government Gazette, Tuesday 14 January 1986:

Source:constitutionwatch.com.au

Invasive Israeli-founded bloatware is harvesting data from Samsung users

While this action may not specifically pertain to Australian users, it does apply to Samsung's A and M (and possibly F) series smartphones.

Across West Asia and North Africa (WANA), growing concerns about digital surveillance have placed Israeli cybersecurity firms and their software under intense scrutiny. Among the most alarming cases is AppCloud, a pre-installed application on Samsung’s A and M series smartphones.

The bloatware cannot be uninstalled easily because it runs on the device’s operating system. Uninstalling it requires root access (the highest level of control in a computer system) of the phone to remove the AppCloud package. Its privacy policy is nowhere to be found online and opting out is not always available. 

But the real concern lies in who owns AppCloud. When investigating further, we discovered that AppCloud’s privacy policy can be traced back to the controversial Israeli-founded company ironSource (now owned by the American company Unity). ironSource is notorious for its questionable practices regarding user consent and data privacy.

From AppCloud’s Privacy Policy (2025).

The implications for Samsung users in WANA are particularly severe. Not only does AppCloud silently harvest user data, but its ties to an Israeli firm raise serious legal and ethical questions in a region where Israeli companies are legally barred from operating in several countries. Despite these concerns, Samsung continues to install AppCloud by default, offering users no clear way to remove or even fully understand what data is being collected.

A Sordid History

ironSource frustrated users, cybersecurity experts, and tech communities with its invasive and questionable practices. One of the company’s most critiqued programs is “Install Core,” advertised as a third party cross-platform installer and advertisement-technology platform (also known as adtech). However, the program was found to be quietly invasive as it allows the installer to install programs on the user’s device without permission. It circumvents the user validation process and successfully bypasses multiple security checks, including antivirus programs, according to investigations by MalwareBytes and Sophos (a British cybersecurity firm). 

Game developers for the Unity Engine were so concerned that they even submitted a collective ultimatum to Unity, ironSource’s parent company. They cited its use as malicious adware and its former installer Install Core, particularly on mobile apps and games. 

ironSource has even been a part of a class action lawsuit settlement alongside fellow adtech firms from Israel’s Download Valley for tracking and targeting children with predatory purchases in games. It is even more troubling that Israeli tech firms focusing on advertising intelligence are often associated with spyware and surveillance.

AppCloud in WANA

AppCloud may be unlisted on the ironSource website, but it is preinstalled in Samsung M and A models of the Galaxy smartphone line in the WANA region, following an expanded partnership between Samsung MENA and ironSource in 2022. This bloatware is installed without the explicit permission of the consumer during the purchase or phone set up. While it has been found on other devices and in other regions, Samsung M and A models are the most consistently infected devices in our region. This is made even more nefarious given that uninstalling the bloatware app is not possible without root access and a bit of technical work. Since AppCloud seems to be built into the system by Samsung, there is no way to purchase a new model without it.

SMEX’s Tech Unit explained that many Android device providers have their own custom version of Android OS, which is optimized for their chipset. This customized Android OS comes with some additional software, which are not necessary for the functioning of the device. They are commonly referred to as “bloatware.” Bloatware is hard to remove and requires mostly flashing the device, breaking the warranties. This is especially concerning given that Samsung is the lead smartphone in terms of device usage in the WANA region, sitting at around 28% market share according to Canalys. 

Additionally, both ironSource and Samsung do not present users consistently nor sufficiently with AppCloud’s privacy policy to WANA users. Since AppCloud is unlisted online there is no copy of its privacy policy or terms of service available to the wider public. It is also not a traditional application in the sense of being able to access and open it from the regular android operating system menu. Instead, AppCloud is basically buried in the backend of the phone making its terms of service inaccessible from the phone without a prompt. 

While Samsung’s terms of service includes agreements to third party applications, there is nothing specific to AppCloud or ironSource. Which is concerning given the significant amount of data the application collects such as biometric data, IP Addresses, and more. On top of all of this, there is no clear opt-out option made available to all users. They are essentially stuck with the application if they wish to use their phone. An application that is given an unprecedented level of control and authority over their smartphones, especially for an application that is pre-installed on the concerned Samsung smartphones. 

Call to Action

Given the invasive and likely illegal nature of AppCloud’s data harvesting, we call for Samsung to immediately halt pre-installing the application on its series M and A smartphones. It potentially violates a number of data privacy laws in the region. Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia are three examples of countries with data protection laws that necessitate explicit user consent and transparency. Additionally, Israeli companies are legally barred from interacting with citizens of many countries in the region. Lebanon, for example, bars and boycotts Israeli companies products starting with the Lebanese Anti-Israel Boycott Law of 1955.

Samsung must also make AppCloud’s privacy policy and terms of service easier to access and read. This can be done by making the application more visible. This means making it accessible with a clear and easy method of opting-out of its services entirely. 

Users can also limit how much AppCloud harvests data from them. Users can access the apps list in their settings to disable AppCloud, but this does not uninstall it from the device. While this should prevent the bloatware app from running, some users have noted that the application reappears after system updates. The only way to fully remove AppCloud requires rooting your phone and voiding the warranty. 

Source:smex

Do you truly understand where your goes from your smartphone?

Who REALLY Writes Australia's News? (The truth About AAP)

Monopoly Men

The colonialists are still in charge of the residents of this (penal) colony.

Australians live under a false presumption that they live in a democracy, where a totalitarian state is the order of the business day.

With one of the more important aspects of penal colony policies being in place is the flow of information, which now it’s more important than ever.

The narrative that is ‘advertised’ to the masses must be strictly controlled and what better way to do it than with only a few in charge of it.

They hide under not-for-profit organisations or charities/trusts.

Their narrative is strictly controlled and must be regurgitated by the over 400 media outlets across the colony called Australia.

Australian ‘consumers’ or subscribers of news or rather entertainment conglomerates that supply so called ‘news’ believe that they have a choice from different sources or that even there is ‘opposition’ where in fact it’s controlled opposition.

See how Tim Penhalluriack unpacks:

•     How AAP operates as a centralised newswire
•     Who its key donors and corporate backers are
•     Why the same journalist byline appears across multiple outlets
•     How this affects media diversity and public trust
•     Whether “fact-checking” is really as objective as it sounds

in the following 17 minute video:

Qantas data breach: How Aussies can join potential class action

Qantas has confirmed that a serious cyber incident may have exposed the personal details of up to six million customers, following a breach of a third-party contact centre platform. The national carrier said it detected “unusual activity” on Monday involving one of its offshore service platforms, which is operated by a call centre based in Manila. The airline said the breach has now been contained.

One of Australia's legal firms has taken Qantas to task over a massive data breach that has left millions of customers' private information in the hands of criminals who are also targeting Telstra. 

A legal firm is investigating a potential class action against Qantas after hackers threatened to release private data from their customer database.

Names, numbers, emails, addresses, birthdays and frequent flyer numbers from 5.7 million Qantas customers are at risk of being publicised, unless software company Salesforce pays a ransom by Friday.

The hacker group, Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, also claims to have the details of Telstra customers.

In an update on its ransom site on Thursday, the group threatened to leak 100GB of Telstra customers’ personal information.

Maurice Blackburn lawyers, Australia’s leading class actions law firm, has filed a complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (AIC) against the airline for a breach of privacy.

If you have been impacted, here’s how you can get involved.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I’M AFFECTED?

Customers have been affected differently, but if you have been a Qantas passenger you may be at risk.

By now, all impacted customers should have received an email titled “confirmation of your details impacted by the cyber incident.”

The email explains exactly which of your details were accessed by the hacker and flags an update to the Qantas Frequent Flyer platform which will be available soon and allow customers to see the “types of data held on the compromised system.”

“Our customer records are based on unique email addresses, so if you have multiple email addresses registered with Qantas, you may have received a separate notification to different impacted email addresses,” Qantas said.

Make sure to check your spam or junk folder.

WHAT IS MAURICE BLACKBURN’S COMPLAINT ABOUT?

The data breach representative complaint have been made against Qantas because they claim the airline has breached the Privacy Act 1988.

This is a law the protects how personal data is handled by the government and by many private organisations.

Maurice Blackburn alleges that Qantas failed to adequately protect the personal information of its customers.

Complaining through a representative can allow a large number of the same complaint to be processed at the same time. 

WHAT PERSONAL DATA WAS STOLEN?

A wide range of personal data was accessed by the hacker.

For four million customers, the data accessed is limited to their name, email address and Qantas Frequent Flyer details.

Of these four million, 1.2 million customers only had their name and email address accessed by the hacker and the remaining 2.8 million also had their Qantas Frequent Flyer number accessed.

Most of the customers whose frequent flyer number was accessed also had their tier and, in a lesser umber of cases, their points balance and status credits.

However for 1.7 million customers, the data hack was more substantial.

Of these customers, 1.3 million had their address revealed to the hacker – this includes business addresses and also the addresses of hotels customers may have stayed in which Qantas had records of for the purpose of reuniting them with misplaced baggage.

Around 1.1 million people had their date of birth accessed.

Approximately 900,000 customers had their phone numbers accessed, 400,000 had their gender revealed to the hacker and 10,000 the meal preferences they chose on flights.

No financial data was breached.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE COMPLAINT?

If you have been notified by Qantas that your information is at risk, then you’re able to participate.

This includes former and current customers.

It doesn't cost any more upfront and if there is a successful outcome, the cost of the service paid to Maurice Blackburn for their legal service will be deducted by the payment affected customers are entitled to.

If it’s unsuccessful no money is owed to Maurice Blackburn.

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE?

For those keen to get involved in the class action, you need your name, number, email and address to register with Maurice Blackburn.

Even if you’ve already interested your interest with another law firm you can register with Maurice Blackburn to get updates about their investigation into potential compensation.

To sign up, you can to the Register now page on the Maurice Blackburn Lawyers site under Qantas Data Breach in the Join a class action section.

Alternatively, you can get in touch with the lawyers using qantasdatabreach@mauriceblackburn.com.au

QANTAS WAS CONTACTED BY THE HACKER – WHAT’S THE LATEST?

The bad actor responsible for the hack has contacted Qantas who have refused to comment further given the active criminal investigation.

Precedence, including the Optus and Medibank incidents, suggest it is unlikely Qantas will cave and pay the ransom demand of the hacker which have not been made public but could be in the many millions of dollars.

The hacker dated the potential release of the information as October 10.

ARE CUSTOMERS VULNERABLE TO SCAMS NOW?

Qantas has recommended customers take precautionary steps and maintain an increased level of vigilance in the wake of the cyber attack.

“Remain alert, especially through email, text messages or telephone calls, particularly where the sender or caller purports to be from Qantas,” an email to impacted customers reads. “Always independently verify the identity of the caller by contacting them on a number available through official channels.

“Do not provide your online account passwords, or any personal or financial information. “Qantas will never contact customers requesting passwords, booking reference details or sensitive login information.”

Source:supplied.

Discord discloses data breach after hackers steal support tickets

Hackers stole partial payment information and personally identifiable data, including names and government-issued IDs, from some Discord users after compromising a third-party customer service provider.

The attack occurred on September 20 and affected “a limited number of users” who interacted with Discord’s customer support and/or Trust and Safety teams.

Discord was created as a communication platform for gamers, who represent more than 90% of the userbase, but expanded to various other communities, allowing text messages, voice chats, and video calls.

According to the platform’s statistics, more than 200 million people are using Discord every month.

Hackers demanded a ransom

In the notification to affected users, the messaging company says that the attack occurred on September 20 and “an unauthorized party gained limited access to a third-party customer service system used by Discord.”

On Friday, Discord disclosed the incident publicly, saying that it took immediate action to isolate the support provider from its ticketing system and started an investigation.

This included revoking the customer support provider’s access to our ticketing system, launching an internal investigation, engaging a leading computer forensics firm to support our investigation and remediation efforts, and engaging law enforcement - Discord

The attack appears to be financially motivated, as the hackers demanded a ransom from Discord in exchange for not leaking the stolen information.

Exposed data includes personally identifying information such as real names and usernames, email addresses, and other contact details provided to the support team.

The social communication service says IP addresses, messages and attachments sent to customer service agents were also compromised.

The hackers also accessed photos of government-issued identification documents (driver’s license, passport) for a small number of users.

Partial billing info, like payment type, the last four credit card digits, and purchase history associated with the compromised account, were exposed as well.

Discord's data breach notification to affected users
source: VX-Underground

VX-Underground security group notes that the type of data stolen from Discord users represents “literally peoples [sic] entire identity.”

Alon Gal, Chief Technology Officer at threat intelligence company Hudson Rock, believes that if the hackers release the Discord data, it could provide crucial information to help uncover or solve crypto hacks and scams.

“I’ll just say that if it leaks, this db is going to be huge for solving crypto related hacks and scams because scammers don’t often remember using a burner email and VPN and almost all of them are on Discord,” says Alon Gal, Chief Technology Officer at Hudson Rock

Currently, it is unclear how many Discord users are affected, and the name of the third-party provider or the access vector has not been disclosed publicly.

However, the Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters (SLH) threat group claimed the attack earlier today.

An image the hackers posted online shows a Kolide access control list for Discord employees with access to the admin console. Kolide is a device trust solution that connects to Okta cloud-based Identity and Access Management (IAM) service for multi-factor authentication.

SLH confirmed to BleepingComputer that it was a Zendesk breach that allowed stealing the Discord user data.

Update: While SLH initially appeared to confirm to BleepingComputer that they were behind the Discord Zendesk compromise, they later stated that it was a different group that they know and interact with.

BleepingComputer contacted Discord with a request for more details about the attack, but a comment from the social communications platform was not immediately available.

It is worth noting that hundreds of companies had their Salesforce instances compromised after the ShinyHunters extortion group accessed them using stolen Salesloft Drift OAuth tokens.

Last month, the hackers claimed to have stolen more than 1.5 billion Salesforce records from 760 companies.

More recently, ShinyHunters launched a data leak site listing more than three dozen victims.

Source: Discord.

Will Australian governments notify 'consumers' when (not 'if) hackers breach servers that users were 'mandated' to upload their government IDs? 

All part of the Nanny State agenda, nothing to do with 'child safety'?

If 'child safety' was on the agenda, the Epstein files would have been released a while ago.