An alleged hacker already facing charges of targeting a Sydney university is now accused of additional cyber crimes against the institution.<\/p>\n
In June, police charged former student Birdie Kingston, 27, with infiltrating Western Sydney University’s (WSU) servers and threatening to sell student data on the dark web.<\/p>\n
Police alleged Ms Kingston had been behind a series of attacks since 2021 and originally infiltrated the university’s servers to gain free parking and change her own grades.<\/p>\n
Ms Kingston was first on the radar of authorities in 2023 when police raided her university accommodation but did not charge her with any offences.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Kingston was first on the radar of authorities in 2023. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Detectives estimate following hacks and alleged threats over several years to sell WSU data saw hundreds of staff and students impacted.<\/p>\n
At the time, NSW Police worked with WSU, the Australian Federal Police, cybersecurity experts and the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre to uncover that the alleged hacker was a former student.<\/p>\n
Ms Kingston was charged with a raft of offences and released on strict bail conditions.<\/p>\n
Police now allege that while out on bail, Ms Kingston was behind further cyber attacks on WSU where 109,745 fraudulent emails disparaging the university were sent to students.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, police allege Ms Kingston accessed the university’s parking, and their “no reply” email addresses to cause it financial disadvantage in October.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, the university alerted staff and students that its systems had been breached, and personal information had been stolen.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Kingston is alleged to have committed the fresh series of hacks while on bail for allegedly hacking into the university’s servers. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n
Between June 19 and August 22 while on bail, the court documents state, Ms Kingston allegedly stole data and injected code into the WSU servers.<\/p>\n
Detectives will also allege Ms Kingston fabricated and posted material in an attempt to exonerate herself from the existing allegations that she was the hacker.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, officers from the Riot Squad executed a search warrant at Ms Kingston’s North Kellyville home, where she was arrested and taken into custody.<\/p>\n
Police allege during her arrest Ms Kingston was in possession of a phone modified as a computer terminal.<\/p>\n
She was taken to The Hills police station and charged with two additional counts each of unauthorised function with intent of a serious offence and fabricating false evidence to mislead a court.<\/p>\n
She was refused bail to appear at Parramatta Local Court on Friday.<\/p>\n
She appeared briefly but did not apply for bail and will remain in custody until she faces the same court again next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An alleged hacker already facing charges of targeting a Sydney university is now accused of additional cyber crimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[184579,184577,1108,184580,8886,43,44,1158,670,41,39,42,40,6620,122675,184578],"class_list":{"0":"post-329775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alleged-hacker","9":"tag-biride-kingston","10":"tag-court","11":"tag-fraudulent-emails","12":"tag-hacking","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-police","16":"tag-sydney","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-university","22":"tag-western-sydney-university","23":"tag-western-sydney-university-hacking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}