NSW Government job website hacked

David M Williams
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 19:32

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The NSW Government has confirmed that a spammed scam job e-mail was actually sent to registered job seekers, with e-mail addresses stolen from their web site.

Just a fortnight ago I received a clearly fake job ad. The ad purported to be from jobs.nsw.gov.au, the official New South Wales (NSW) Government job portal.

The ad offered me a lucrative earning potential if I merely agreed to use Western Union to forward monies deposited into my bank account.

Obviously, this is a scam; the payments received are stolen funds. Were I to send money (retaining a commission) by Western Union the thieves would get away without a trace. By contrast, my bank account would be directly linked to the theft and it's what would be frozen!

Like you, I get masses of spam. I knew it wasn't from jobs.nsw.gov.au no matter how much it pretended to be. I deleted it figuring it was “just another” bit of junk mail, although I was surprised to find one purporting to be from the NSW Government job board; that was definitely a new one on me!

Had I thought about it deeper I might have considered this was no ordinary spam. This time there was a direct relationship between how the spammers got my e-mail address and the organisation they purported to represent.

It turns out the Department of Commerce has taken this whole incident very seriously indeed, and far more than common garden-variety spam would necessitate.

If you visit the site jobs.nsw.gov.au you will see it is inaccessible, and in fact, has been for a week. A message advises that the system is down for “system maintenance.”

It goes on to say that some registered job seekers have received spam e-mails advertising non-existent job vacancies and these ought to be deleted without replying.

“Jobs.NSW does not send e-mails regarding employment opportunities within the private sector, and people should be wary of receiving unsolicited e-mails claiming to be from the site.

“The Department of Commerce is currently looking into the matter and has alerted the relevant authorities.”

Coincidentally, the Government had released a request for tender for a supplier to take over all e-recruitment activities and relieve the state of this function. The tender closed yesterday and sought a provider to completely replace the Jobs.NSW site as well as cover all recruitment processes, with some 39,000 hires each year.