11 August 2016
Yesterday I initiated an investigation into an incident involving the Census 2016 website. My priority in doing so was to ensure that no personal information had been compromised.
My staff and I have been in regular contact with the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), and I have received a briefing directly from the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) — the Commonwealth’s pre-eminent cyber-security analysts.
ASD advised me that the incident was a denial of service (DoS) attack and did not result in any unauthorised access to, or extraction of, any personal information and, on the information provided to me by ASD, I am satisfied that personal information was not inappropriately accessed, lost or mishandled.