Vodafone Australia hacked Fairfax journalist's phone
Telecommunications giant Vodafone is denying "improper conduct" after an employee accessed files on journalist Natalie O'Brien's phone in an attempt to uncover her sources.
Vodafone Australia has admitted hacking into a journalist's phone records for espionage purposes. The company was trying to uncover the sources of the journalist's stories, but Vodafone denies any "improper conduct."
The journalist, Natalie O’Brien, and in 2011 published a series of stories related to serious security issues in the Siebel data system used by Vodafone.
O'Brien said Vodafone's Siebel data system was available online and easily accessible through generic passwords shared by the company and publicly.
The journalists reported that Vodafone's system was vulnerable to cyber attacks, exposing customers' data, including their home addresses, driving licenses and credit card details to «criminal circles of malicious users».
In response, after the story was published, a Vodafone employee gained access to her phone (O’Brien was a Vodafone customer), to the call logs and her messages, in order to discover the sources and the informants.
The journalist was upset by this story, the possible weaknesses in Vodafone's system and the hack, it had to be reported to the relevant authorities, [Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Australian Communications and Media Authority].
According to internal e‑mails of Vodafone, as mentioned in the Australian, , the communications giant was aware of the serious security breaches and of the consequences of hacking the journalist's communications and her data.
Vodafone Australia denies any allegations of misconduct and confirms that it provided all necessary support to the authorities' [Privacy Commissioner] investigation.
It should be noted, however, that this is not the first time Vodafone has been mentioned in a matter concerning data protection with a negative tone.
