Australia’s Controversial Census in Chaos After Possible Cyber Attack - NBC News
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Australia’s first online national census was in chaos on Wednesday after the survey website crashed overnight due to a possible cyber attack, raising concerns over the country’s cyber security and criticism of its slow internet services.
“It was an attack and we believe from overseas,” Australia’s chief statistician, David Kalisch told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Kalisch said that no data from the 2.3 million forms already submitted to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had been stolen. “We have it at the ABS. No one else has it,” he said.
The census provides a snapshot every five years of the living conditions of Australia’s 24 million people, detailing incomes, religious and ethnic backgrounds, marital status, etc.
The minister responsible for the survey, Michael McCormack, refused to call the online crash an attack, but rather a “denial of service attempt” when the website was deliberately overloaded.
He said the site was equipped to handle heavy traffic, but there was a spike in visitors so steep that a router overloaded and the website was closed as a precaution.