Services Australia data breaches surge as scammers try to hack customer accounts using stolen details

Services Australia says the huge increase in data breaches has come as a result of scammers increasingly using personal information they have stolen elsewhere. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Services Australia has seen a massive surge in data breaches by scammers harvesting information from previous hacks and using it to access customer accounts, Guardian Australia can reveal.

Data obtained under freedom of information by a user, known as CR, on the transparency website Right to Know reveals that, as of 5 July, Services Australia had reported 49 data breaches as a result of social engineering – where people call an agency pretending to be someone in order to access information – in 2024.