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A spokesperson has told Cyber Daily that no university data has been compromised after a hacking forum member claimed to have breached its GitHub repositories.
Following the news of a cyber security incident impacting 10,000 students at the University of Western Sydney, sandstone institution the University of Sydney has had to respond to claims that a hacker had compromised some of the university’s source code.
An individual going by the name of Sythe made the claims on a popular clear web hacking forum on 3 April 3 in a post titled SOURCE CODE Sydney.uni.au.
Under a large image of the university’s logo, the hacker said: “I have downloaded all repos associated with Sydney.edu.au’s GitHub token.”
Sythe then listed the data they had allegedly compromised, including the individual repositories as well as numerous other files labelled as Beakon and git_utility. The content is being sold for eight site credits. Credits on the forum can be purchased for as little as €8, which buys 30 credits.
However, the University of Sydney has confirmed that its systems were not impacted and that it was a third-party vendor that had suffered the data breach.
“We became aware of a claim made on X alleging there had been a GitHub token leak from the University soon after it was posted,” a university spokesperson told Cyber Daily.
“We immediately contacted the vendor of our hosted Contractor Safety Management System (CSMS), Beakon, who have investigated the incident and confirmed that while there was a breach involving Beakon, thankfully no University data was breached.
“We work hard to protect our people, processes and information, and continually review and improve our systems to manage such threats.”
Cyber Daily understands that the ACSC has been informed and that Beakon has remediated the breach of its systems. However, Beakon has not responded to a request for comment from Cyber Daily.
Beakon offers a range of software platforms to manage workplace compliance, safety, and risk and has offices in Sydney, London, and Los Angeles. Alongside the University of Sydney, its customers include Coca-Cola Amatil, Ampol, and ConocoPhillips.
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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