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An Australian immigration consultancy has fallen victim to the DragonForce ransomware gang, with hundreds of student visa applications, passports, and more leaked online.
The DragonForce ransomware gang has claimed the scalp of an Australian victim – the immigration consultancy Aussizz Group.
DragonForce listed the Aussizz Group on its darknet leak site on 5 April, and since then, it has published all 278.91 gigabytes of the information it managed to exfiltrate. The group is listed under the banner of “Companies that refused to cooperate”.
The published data includes student confirmation sheets with names, addresses, emails, courses enrolled in, visa applications, scans of passports – many still valid – and ID cards, as well as invoices, college transcripts, and skill assessments from the Australian Computing Society. The data is hosted on the ransomware gang’s website, so it is difficult to quantify, but it appears to contain folders for well over a thousand of the Aussizz Group’s recent clients.
The Aussizz Group initially said, on 19 April – which was also the ransom deadline – that it was aware of the incident and was investigating how it had occurred.
“We are aware that cyber criminals claim to have stolen and published data relating to Aussizz,” a company spokesperson said on a page of its website dedicated to the incident.
“We are working to verify and understand what data has been impacted as part of our comprehensive response to this incident.
“Should our investigations reveal that the impacted dataset includes personal information, we will notify affected individuals and provide the necessary support in accordance with our obligations.”
In a second update, dated 29 April, the group said it was continuing “to respond to a cyber security incident”.
“To support our comprehensive response, Aussizz launched an investigation, engaged cyber security specialists, and is working with relevant government agencies,” the updated incident alert said.
According to the Aussizz Group’s website, the consultancy has helped more than 180,000 clients – including students – immigrate to Australia since it was formed in 2009.
Cyber Daily has reached out to the Aussizz Group for further information.
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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