IDCARE as Australia’s national identity and cyber support community service has been engaged by Melbourne Polytechnic to assist individuals who have concerns about the exposure of their personal information.
IDCARE is an independent charity focused on supporting community members that have concerns about their personal, account or credential information.
We have been asked by Melbourne Polytechnic to extend our support to impacted persons via the provision of expert advice and IDCARE specialist Case Management services are available.
Note that IDCARE's National Case Management specialises in cases where individuals believe they have experienced identity exploitation and misuse or have grave concerns about this risk.
General recommendations are provided below. If you have specific concerns or seek further guidance on the recommendations, please submit an Individual Get Help Form and use the reference code provided in your notification.
IDCARE Case Managers work every day with community members who experience the compromise or exploitation of their personal information. They understand the real risks, concerns and needs of our community.
The exposure of personal information such as name, date of birth, and contact details can heighten risks around scammer engagement. In fact, notifications about a breach itself can also heighten risks, as scammers can seek to impersonate the breached organisation when engaging with notified persons.
Remain scam vigilant by:
Assuming that communications you receive may be from a scammer.
Make your own enquiries using an alternative contact method to the one they used.
Never give remote access to your devices if asked by someone who engages you.
Keep your passwords and codes to yourself. Sharing these with scammers may mean you breach the terms and conditions of the account providers (such as your bank) and any chance of recovering funds highly unlikely.
Staying abreast of the latest scams by visiting Scamwatch or by subscribing to IDCARE’s free community awareness bulletin, Cyber Sushi
If you believe you have responded to a scam engagement, please complete an IDCARE Get Help form to request assistance.
IDCARE has formed response recommendations relating to the credentials exposed as a result of the Melbourne Polytechnic cyber incident.
Potential Risks
Individually, these are both low risk identity attributes, however in combination with other information (such as address and phone number) scammers engaging you may appear more legitimate.
Recommendations
You may see an increase in targeted phishing attempts via email, text messaging or telephone calls, where the scammer uses details specific to you (such as your name and date of birth for “verification”). For more information on phishing watch IDCARE's what is phishing video here --> https://www.idcare.org/how-to-videos/what-is-phishing.
Never click on links in emails or text messages, no matter how legitimate they appear. Do not be pressured to respond, whether it is by email, text message or telephone. If you want to know whether an organisation tried to get in touch with you, contact the organisation yourself using contact details you know are correct.
Keep being scam vigilant and stay across the latest scams by regularly visiting idcare.org, connecting with our social media, and subscribing to our free online newsletter Cyber Sushi. Another great resource is Scamwatch that collate lots of information and alerts about scams.
Information
The physical address will be the one provided to Melbourne Polytechnic.
Potential Risks
For most individuals, physical addresses are considered low risk identity attributes. However, in combination with other attributes (such as your full name, date of birth, email address and phone number) scammers engaging you via email, SMS or telephone may appear more legitimate.
Reports made to IDCARE of cyber criminals physically attending a person’s address are very low. Most scammers and cybercriminals are not in Australia.
Some people can have specific concerns about the exposure of their address details, such as survivors of family and domestic violence or as a result of other personal reasons.
Recommendation
You may wish to discuss your concerns around physical security. You may engage an IDCARE Case Manager with these concerns, please book a time via our Get Help for Individuals Form.
Information
This refers to the Student ID Number supplied for students by Melbourne Polytechnic.
Potential Risks
Student Identification Number is not a credential that can be used for identity verification purposes for account creation, and therefore, does not pose a direct risk of identity misuse.
Recommendation
If you have concerns about your Student Identification Number, please contact Melbourne Polytechnic via their MP Get Help Form.
IDCARE as a registered charity does not ask individuals to donate or pay for our front line services. We are not a charity that can receive tax deductible donations.
We rely on organisations that care enough about you to care about us to keep our charitable service going. Proudly these organisations are displayed above and on our Subscriber Organisations page.
If you are asked for payment from someone claiming to be from IDCARE, please report this to us using our Report Phishing email.
IDCARE has access to the Department of Home Affairs Free Interpreting Service, delivered by the Translating and Interpreting Service (TIS National). Access to the Free Interpreting Service is provided to assist you to communicate with non-English speaking people who hold a Medicare card. Please note that the service does not extend to New Zealand citizens or residents who do not hold an Australian Medicare card, or to tourists, overseas students or people on temporary work visas.
New Zealand Relay provides services to help Deaf, hearing impaired, speech impaired, Deafblind and standard phone users communicate with their peers.
A TTY user connects to New Zealand Relay via a toll-free number and types their conversation to a Relay Assistant (RA) who then reads out the typed message to a standard phone user (hearing person).
The RA relays the hearing person's spoken words by typing them back to the Textphone (TTY) User.
The National Relay Service (NRS) is an Australian government initiative that allows people who are deaf, hard of hearing and/or have a speech impairment to make and receive phone calls.
The NRS is available 24 hours a day, every day and relays more than a million calls each year throughout Australia.