Australian online census shut down by cyberattacks

As the Census website went offline and it emerged that it had been caused by a DoS attack, Australians took to the internet to goad the authorities responsible for the census.

The five-yearly census suffered three attacks during Tuesday local time and then after 7.30pm was hit by a major fourth barrage, which it said coincided with a surge in genuine visitors to the site, presumably trying to fill in their forms online after work and before the midnight deadline.

“This was not an attack, nor was it a hack, but rather it was an attempt to frustrate the collection of Bureau of Statistics census data”, McCormack said.

The attacks are a severe embarrassment for Malcolm Turnbull’s government, which claimed earlier that the technology had been rigorously tested and that personal information was safe.

“Wake up Australia, “Cybergeddon” is here”, Mr Smith said.

“With the way that they run this website I think this should have been predicted, in my view”, he said.

ABS said the attack likely came from overseas. “I respect people’s privacy concerns, but people should remember that in 2011 some of this data was kept for a period of up to 18 months”. “No data has – the site has not been hacked, it has not been interfered with, their data is safe”.

The Greens have accused the government of playing with semantics to describe the shutdown.

Minister for Small Business Michael McCormack’s website was down for maintenance on Wednesday night, after the MP spent his morning defending the “denial of service” attack or event (depending on who you ask).

However, he recognised the “legitimate” privacy concerns held by some Australians, and said any government or private organisation collecting personal information “must explain the case clearly for why the data is needed and how it will be used”.

Coalition ministers have dismissed critics, including independent senator Nick Xenophon, as conspiracy theorists.

The DDoS attacks couldn’t come at a worst time for the ABS, which has for weeks been battling a large backlash against the census from privacy activists and politicians (see Australia in Privacy Furor Over Census).

“If they were handing out gold medals at Rio for incompetence, this Government would be on the winner’s podium absolutely”.

“At the end of the day though there are legitimate debates about making sure this information is securely stored”, he said.

According to the ABC, Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim said says his agency is “generally satisfied about the ability of the Bureau of Statistics to securely collect, retain and protect Census data”.

The Australian Signals directorate and the Bureau of Statistics are also examining the issue.

A Senate inquiry would nearly certainly be approved by the new Senate.

Australians have until September 23 to complete their forms and the government says they won’t be fined for late lodgement.