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Fire Rescue Victoria has confirmed that it was the victim of a cyber attack that has caused the service to shut down some of its systems last week.
The incident seems to have begun early on Thursday morning, 15 December, and was then confirmed the next day on 16 December.
“In the early hours of this morning, FRV became alerted to an IT outage impacting across our network, including emergency dispatch, internet, intranet and the phone system,” FRV said in a statement released on Thursday.
“Upon being alerted to this issue, we immediately enacted our emergency protocols to ensure our response arrangements were not impacted.”
The next day, FRV continued to monitor the “widespread IT outage”, and that it was, indeed, hacked.
“Preliminary investigations confirm this has been a cyber attack by an external third party and that FRV systems are impacted,” FRV said in a second release.
“We have taken decisive action in response to this incident and are working around the clock with specialist cyber security firms and our partners in the state and federal governments, including the Australian Cyber Security Centre. FRV will provide more information as it comes to hand.”
Fire Rescue Victoria confirmed in both instances that the attack has not impacted FRV’s ability to continue to serve the Victorian community.
“Importantly, community safety has not been compromised and FRV continues to dispatch crews and appliances through mobile phones, pagers and radios,” FRV said.
According to FRV’s website, the outage is ongoing as of time of writing, and that the 000 emergency line is still operating. FRV has attended to at least two house fires since the outage was reported.
Fire Rescue Victoria has been approached for further comment.
Fire Rescue Victoria has released an update on the status of last month’s cyber attack.
As of last week, the organisation was still experiencing widespread disruption to its systems, including its normal communications. Further, FRV has confirmed that some information has been stolen, though it cannot confirm exactly what has been breached just yet, though it may contain credentials and personal information of employees.
“FRV will contact current and former employees who may be affected by this situation to provide appropriate support to help them protect their information,” FRV said in a statement.
All FRV services remain operational, however, and FRV confirms that the Triple Zero emergency line can still be relied upon.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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