1
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,039
Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.

2
00:00:08,119 --> 00:00:13,960
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, April nineth, twenty twenty five, and for now

3
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:16,600
Speaker 1: Benezi and Peter Dutton have faced off in the first

4
00:00:16,720 --> 00:00:21,640
Speaker 1: debate of this election campaign, a clash that inevitably turned fiery.

5
00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:25,720
Speaker 2: In the twenty fourteen budget, thirty b and dollars was

6
00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:29,080
Speaker 2: repped out of public schools. In that budget, fifty b

7
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,239
Speaker 2: and dollars was repped out of hospitals. That is not

8
00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:37,000
Speaker 2: the factually correct statement. It's misleading, it's designed to scare people,

9
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:39,400
Speaker 2: and I think it's dishonest from a man who wants

10
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:42,280
Speaker 2: to be re elected as the Prime minister of our country.

11
00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:45,920
Speaker 2: In forty years, there has not been a higher spending

12
00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:47,880
Speaker 2: government than your government. Is that correct?

13
00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:49,680
Speaker 3: Well, that's not true, except for the one that you

14
00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:50,400
Speaker 3: were a part of.

15
00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:56,480
Speaker 1: The Greens are pitching their campaign at Australia's seven million renters,

16
00:00:56,800 --> 00:00:59,280
Speaker 1: with leader Adam Bandt at the Press Club on Wednesday

17
00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:03,000
Speaker 1: to demand capital gains, tax breaks and negative gearing be

18
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:08,520
Speaker 1: axed and a freeze on rent increases. All the latest

19
00:01:08,600 --> 00:01:12,360
Speaker 1: from the campaign and our experts analysis is live now

20
00:01:12,440 --> 00:01:17,840
Speaker 1: at the Australian dot com dot au. Australian super has

21
00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:21,200
Speaker 1: finally called in the police to investigate a hack that

22
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:25,119
Speaker 1: saw four hundred and six thousand dollars drained from an

23
00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:30,119
Speaker 1: elderly customer's superannuation account. But the scandal has revealed huge

24
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:34,520
Speaker 1: holes in superfund's ability to keep our money away from criminals,

25
00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:37,640
Speaker 1: or even to allow us to log into their websites

26
00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:41,160
Speaker 1: to find out how much money we have left today?

27
00:01:41,600 --> 00:01:50,279
Speaker 1: Is our money safe in super? Towards the end of March,

28
00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:54,120
Speaker 1: a seventy four year old Queensland woman received some correspondence

29
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:59,440
Speaker 1: from her superannuation fund. We'll call her Joan. Australian super

30
00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:03,360
Speaker 1: was writing to Joan, it said, to confirm withdrawals made

31
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:07,920
Speaker 1: from her account a week earlier. That's odd, Joan hadn't

32
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:11,640
Speaker 1: made any withdrawals, much less for one hundred thousand dollars

33
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:15,640
Speaker 1: at a time, and it wasn't just one. Joan realized

34
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: with increasing horror that six withdrawals totaling four hundred and

35
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,480
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars had been made from her super over

36
00:02:23,480 --> 00:02:26,799
Speaker 1: the space of a week. When she alerted the superfund

37
00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:30,720
Speaker 1: to the fraud, she expected a swift response, but for

38
00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:35,679
Speaker 1: ten agonizing days. It was crickets. The fund failed to

39
00:02:35,760 --> 00:02:38,760
Speaker 1: raise the incident with the Commonwealth Bank and didn't commit

40
00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,639
Speaker 1: to covering the loss until The Australian's Business reporter Cleoner

41
00:02:42,639 --> 00:02:47,760
Speaker 1: O'Dowd started asking questions almost three weeks after the attack began.

42
00:02:48,639 --> 00:02:52,000
Speaker 1: And Joan's not the only one caught up in this mess.

43
00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:58,639
Speaker 4: Several Australian superannuation funds have been targeted by cyber criminals.

44
00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:03,600
Speaker 4: It's caused panic and frustration for thousands of members who've

45
00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 4: been unable to check whether their nest egg has been impacted.

46
00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:15,160
Speaker 1: Jared Lynch is The Australian's Technology editor. The story of

47
00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:18,639
Speaker 1: Joan and her loss of four hundred and six thousand

48
00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:22,200
Speaker 1: dollars from her superfund is just staggering. And what does

49
00:03:22,240 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 1: that tell us about the safety of all of our funds.

50
00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:29,320
Speaker 3: It tells us that our safety is expendable and can

51
00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,760
Speaker 3: be cracked within seconds by anyone who's got the will

52
00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 3: to be able to do that. How they've been able

53
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:38,920
Speaker 3: to get in the hackers is that they've got a

54
00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:42,160
Speaker 3: heap of people's usernames. They've ever tried to get a

55
00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:44,920
Speaker 3: heap of passwords from the dark web, from previous breaches

56
00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:47,000
Speaker 3: or they have done what's called a brute force attack,

57
00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:50,480
Speaker 3: which is to keep guessing, scrambling, guessing until you're getting

58
00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 3: through the door. And because there's no multi factor of

59
00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:57,640
Speaker 3: authentication which means you get a notification on your phone

60
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,600
Speaker 3: or through a third party app to verify yourself, that

61
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:02,720
Speaker 3: means that they can walk straight in through the door

62
00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:04,800
Speaker 3: and do what they like with your account.

63
00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:08,960
Speaker 1: How big is this jared compared to other hacks that

64
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,120
Speaker 1: we've seen of major companies like, for example, OPTAs.

65
00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:15,720
Speaker 3: Australia super would love to compare it to OPTAs, saying

66
00:04:15,760 --> 00:04:17,880
Speaker 3: that well, they had the data of nine and a

67
00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:21,119
Speaker 3: half million Australian stolen. We've only had a very small

68
00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:23,800
Speaker 3: problem here and that of course has been the problem

69
00:04:23,800 --> 00:04:25,880
Speaker 3: with the super funds, which is why they've been so

70
00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:28,800
Speaker 3: laxed when it comes to cybersecurity. And I'm not saying this.

71
00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:32,240
Speaker 3: The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is saying this. They

72
00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:35,320
Speaker 3: set it back in January saying that your weak online

73
00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:39,240
Speaker 3: security is exposing your members to scams. Do something about it.

74
00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:42,919
Speaker 3: And rather than doing something about it, the Association of

75
00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:48,240
Speaker 3: Super Funds Off Australia CEO said, you're raising unnecessary alarm.

76
00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:52,240
Speaker 3: Super funds are the safest places in Australia to put

77
00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:56,160
Speaker 3: your money. So nothing happened and as a result we've

78
00:04:56,200 --> 00:04:59,640
Speaker 3: now seen this huge cyber attack because they thought, well

79
00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,920
Speaker 3: it's only a little problem. Well little problems can turn

80
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,520
Speaker 3: into big problems. To paraphrase Paul Kelly, from little things,

81
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 3: big things grow and that is indeed what is happening.

82
00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:14,359
Speaker 1: Four super funds were targeted by cyber criminals in the

83
00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:20,279
Speaker 1: coordinated attack, Australian Super, Australian Retirement Trust HOST Plus and

84
00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:25,760
Speaker 1: REST the retail employee's superannuation trust. They manage almost a

85
00:05:25,880 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: trillion dollars in retirement savings on behalf of thousands of

86
00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:34,360
Speaker 1: Australians like Joan, who's one of four Australian supercustomers confirmed

87
00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,880
Speaker 1: to have lost money in the hack. Australian Super is

88
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:40,960
Speaker 1: still combing through the six hundred accounts that were breached,

89
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:46,000
Speaker 1: while other funds scramble to reassure their anxious customers.

90
00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:53,160
Speaker 5: No suspicious transactions or changes have been detected on member accounts.

91
00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:57,120
Speaker 2: We recognize how frustrating this can be and sincerely appreciate

92
00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 2: your patience. An unusually high spe can log in attempts.

93
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:04,480
Speaker 1: We are experiencing a high volume of calls to our

94
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,680
Speaker 1: contact center, resulting in a longer than normal wait time.

95
00:06:09,160 --> 00:06:12,200
Speaker 1: So Jared, now we get to the mystery of why

96
00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:15,960
Speaker 1: police weren't involved right from the beginning. What are you

97
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:19,680
Speaker 1: hearing now from Australian super about if or when the

98
00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:20,640
Speaker 1: police were called.

99
00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:24,560
Speaker 3: Well, the good news is that they have contact a

100
00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:27,080
Speaker 3: Metaday to say that we have reported it to the AFP.

101
00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:30,480
Speaker 3: Five days after the hackers struck they decided to call

102
00:06:30,520 --> 00:06:33,599
Speaker 3: in the coppers and that was only because probably that

103
00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:35,680
Speaker 3: we did a front page story saying they hadn't called

104
00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:39,000
Speaker 3: the AFP, who, of course, are the federal agency tasks

105
00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:42,880
Speaker 3: with investigating such crimes, because as we all know, they're

106
00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:44,919
Speaker 3: the ones that we're able to track down the Russian

107
00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:47,760
Speaker 3: hacker that was responsible for the medibank attack back in

108
00:06:47,839 --> 00:06:48,520
Speaker 3: late twenty two.

109
00:06:49,839 --> 00:06:54,479
Speaker 5: The AFP is undertaking covert measures and working around the

110
00:06:54,480 --> 00:06:59,359
Speaker 5: clock with our domestic agencies and our international networks, including

111
00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:04,840
Speaker 5: into POL. This is important because we believe those responsible

112
00:07:04,880 --> 00:07:08,760
Speaker 5: for the breach are in Russia.

113
00:07:08,960 --> 00:07:10,880
Speaker 3: Super funds, a lot of them, not all of them,

114
00:07:10,880 --> 00:07:13,080
Speaker 3: but a lot of them are regulated by the Australian

115
00:07:13,080 --> 00:07:18,240
Speaker 3: Prudential Regulatory Authority, and when these sort of hacks happen,

116
00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:21,600
Speaker 3: APROA do a review and if they have found that

117
00:07:21,680 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 3: your cyber defenses are inadequate or weak, then they can

118
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 3: impose pretty harsh penalties, which is what they did with

119
00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:32,360
Speaker 3: Medibank after their attack, and the same thing can happen here.

120
00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 3: The problem is we don't know what that is until

121
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,360
Speaker 3: probably potentially weeks or even months after the event, until

122
00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:43,000
Speaker 3: the forensic analysis has been done. APRA comes in and

123
00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,480
Speaker 3: does their investigation, and all that is very poor comfort

124
00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:49,400
Speaker 3: to members who the reason why they're with an industry

125
00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:51,800
Speaker 3: super fun to begin with is they're there to profit members,

126
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:55,960
Speaker 3: not themselves, and any fines are taken from the member's

127
00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:58,240
Speaker 3: pot of money. So they're up in arms say, well,

128
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:01,120
Speaker 3: what point is it to find the super funds. That's

129
00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:04,000
Speaker 3: my money that you're taking away, and I've already been

130
00:08:04,320 --> 00:08:06,840
Speaker 3: hit with this cyber attack, so it's almost like punishing

131
00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:07,880
Speaker 3: the victims of crime.

132
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:11,440
Speaker 1: The other big threat to Australian superbalances right now is

133
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:15,360
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his Liberation Day tariffs, which are draining

134
00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:18,680
Speaker 1: money out of all our superbalances day to day. That's

135
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:22,200
Speaker 1: why hundreds of thousands of Australians are wanting to log

136
00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:25,200
Speaker 1: on and look at their superbalances to see what's going on,

137
00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:28,240
Speaker 1: to see how much money they've got left. Should the

138
00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:31,960
Speaker 1: funds have to be able to deal with that kind

139
00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,720
Speaker 1: of volume, Jared, Surely it's not out of the realm

140
00:08:34,720 --> 00:08:38,120
Speaker 1: of consideration that everybody would want to log on all

141
00:08:38,160 --> 00:08:39,679
Speaker 1: on the one day to see if their money is

142
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:40,120
Speaker 1: still there.

143
00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:43,520
Speaker 3: You're absolutely spot on there if they're providing a service

144
00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:45,320
Speaker 3: and they've got to make sure people access it. And

145
00:08:45,320 --> 00:08:48,440
Speaker 3: when you look at a massive geopolitical event which is

146
00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:53,120
Speaker 3: causing considerable anxiety, particularly as you approach preservation age where

147
00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:55,680
Speaker 3: you're about to draw down on that super naturally you

148
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:58,320
Speaker 3: are going to want to check out what your balances

149
00:08:58,360 --> 00:09:02,679
Speaker 3: are etc. Also, the closer you are to preservation age,

150
00:09:03,160 --> 00:09:06,880
Speaker 3: the more vulnerable you are to scams because you're wanting

151
00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:09,520
Speaker 3: to go in logging, work out how you're going to

152
00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,000
Speaker 3: manage your money, etc. And that was one of the

153
00:09:12,040 --> 00:09:17,480
Speaker 3: things Acid called out that super trustees had no way

154
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 3: of knowing whether someone who was approaching preservation age was

155
00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,480
Speaker 3: being tricked and a victim of a scam. And that

156
00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:28,120
Speaker 3: was one thing that Acid called out back in January

157
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:32,920
Speaker 3: and which their lobby group said they're be an alarmist.

158
00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:34,960
Speaker 3: There's nothing to see here. More or less.

159
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:41,520
Speaker 1: Coming up, the super fun say they're the safest place

160
00:09:41,600 --> 00:10:02,800
Speaker 1: in the world to keep your money. Does that stack up, Jared?

161
00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:06,760
Speaker 1: Because they have so much of Australian's money under management.

162
00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:10,559
Speaker 1: Super funds are incredibly powerful as forces in our society

163
00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:13,760
Speaker 1: in terms of what they do or don't invest in,

164
00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:17,360
Speaker 1: what values they expect companies to uphold, if they're going

165
00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:21,199
Speaker 1: to give them our money. What are we seeing do

166
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,160
Speaker 1: you think in the balance of the way super funds

167
00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:26,880
Speaker 1: themselves operate and expect others to operate.

168
00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,840
Speaker 3: So it's very much do as I say, not as

169
00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:34,439
Speaker 3: do as I do. And one of the reasons why

170
00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:38,520
Speaker 3: we haven't seen this big diversity, equity and inclusion pushback

171
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:41,880
Speaker 3: that we've seen happen in the US is because of

172
00:10:42,080 --> 00:10:45,480
Speaker 3: Australia's super funds. Because they sit on about four trillion

173
00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:49,200
Speaker 3: dollars worth of savings and use their enormous clout to

174
00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:52,960
Speaker 3: push their own agenda onto Australia's top companies. That's just

175
00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:55,719
Speaker 3: a reality. They're sitting on the biggest pot of retirement

176
00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:58,240
Speaker 3: savings in the country and they're not afraid to flex

177
00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:02,520
Speaker 3: that financial muscle, but when it comes to their own house,

178
00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:05,160
Speaker 3: it's an absolute mess. They're saying it is one of

179
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 3: the safest places in the country where you can park

180
00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:10,280
Speaker 3: your money, and that is true, but what we've seen

181
00:11:10,559 --> 00:11:14,400
Speaker 3: is their corporate governance is wanting. They are a soft target.

182
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 3: They're sitting on trillions of dollars worth of retirement savings.

183
00:11:17,880 --> 00:11:20,840
Speaker 3: That is a huge honeypot for hackers. And if they

184
00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:24,000
Speaker 3: don't clean up their shop, make sure that they adopt

185
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,640
Speaker 3: the same level of governance that they demand from the

186
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:31,679
Speaker 3: likes of Wistech and other Australian companies, then our retirement

187
00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 3: savings are at risk to these sort of data breaches, attacks,

188
00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:38,120
Speaker 3: you name it. They got to clean up their act.

189
00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:46,360
Speaker 1: Jared Lynch is The Australian's Technology editor. You can read

190
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:49,560
Speaker 1: all our reporting on this hack and on the superannuation

191
00:11:49,679 --> 00:12:05,319
Speaker 1: sector right now at the Australian dot com dot au