More than 90,000 SA public servants involved in payroll data breach

South Australia’s Treasurer says 13,088 current and former public servants more than previously thought had their personal information stolen in a 2021 cyber attack.

Treasurer Stephen Mullighan told parliament on Wednesday a $420,000 “forensic review” by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) uncovered the additional people that had had their personal data stolen, in addition to the 80,000 employees announced last year.

The data, which included tax file numbers and bank account details, was stolen when the state government’s payroll provider, Frontier Software, was hacked.

“After accessing this information, the perpetrators deployed ransomware to Frontier’s systems and posted some of the files to the dark web,” Mr Mullighan said.

Some public servants were locked out from accessing services such as the Australian Taxation Office or their superannuation record systems because of the incident.

Read more: ABC, 18 May 2022