MP’s messaging account hacked by ‘foreign state actor’
The WhatsApp accounts of a federal parliamentarian and three staff members were hacked by a presumed foreign state actor, a budget estimates hearing was told.
The Department of Parliamentary Services’ chief information officer, Mike Webb, told an inquest on Monday that it blocked the Meta-owned messaging app in all parliamentary web browsers after the phishing attack was reported on March 6.
Mr Webb said all four accounts were compromised in the same manner.
The hackers first requested that a legitimate verification code be sent to users’ devices.
They then sent a request to the victims to send them the verification code that the hackers used to log into the account.
“The next step is to connect one of their devices and they essentially become that person in terms of communication,” Mr. Webb said.
“Evidence shows that the attack was carried out by a foreign state actor,” he said.
“Many governments around the world have issued warnings of such attacks, including Germany, the Netherlands, the United States and a number of other countries,” Mr. Webb said.
“So this is aimed at our parliamentarians, but this is a real global problem.”
Following notification of the breach, the department’s cybersecurity team reported the intelligence agency to the Australian Signals Directorate and temporarily blocked WhatsApp from parliament’s IT systems to prevent more users from falling prey to hackers.
The blockage was lifted Sunday night.
Between July 1, 2025, and March 31, the department detected 46 malware samples, nearly 20,000 phishing attempts and approximately 1,458 cyber alerts, officials said.
James McGrath, a leading figure in the coalition, accused the Albanian government of foreign interference and lack of leadership on national security.
“This translates into the way departments are run and the way they deal with serious situations,” Senator McGrath said.
“This is the latest failure in a series of increasingly frequent incidents that put MPs and their staff at risk.”
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