Data security incident involving after-hours service provider

The City of Ballarat is contacting residents after being notified of a cyber security incident involving its after-hours service provider, OracleCMS. OracleCMS is a third-party supplier which Council uses as its after-hours phone call service provider.  

When the community calls the City of Ballarat’s service line outside of business hours, the call is diverted to OracleCMS who take the call on Council’s behalf and then pass the message over to us.    

The City of Ballarat’s own systems and databases have not been accessed. This data breach relates to the external OracleCMS system only.  

There are 52 impacted local residents who will be notified about the breach. The affected data is limited to ‘low risk identity attributes’ that was collected between April 2015 and December 2017 and largely consists of first names and last names of individuals along with their addresses and phone numbers.

City of Ballarat, Acting Chief Executive Officer, Matt Wilson said the protection of our local resident’s confidentiality and privacy is of critical importance.

“The City of Ballarat apologises unreservedly to everyone affected by this incident,” Mr Wilson said.

“We are in the process of contacting every resident impacted and are offering no-cost access to the services of national identity and cyber support service IDCARE.”

The City of Ballarat takes the privacy of its customers very seriously and is committed to ensuring all contracted service providers have the strongest cyber security measures in place. OracleCMS have since undertaken several steps to enhance their cyber security and help prevent recurrence, supported by cyber security experts.

If you have any concerns about this incident or need more information, please call our Customer Service team on 5320 5500.

OracleCMS has been working with government authorities to investigate the incident which has impacted a number of organisations and local Councils across Australia.

A copy of OracleCMS’ statement can be found at oraclecms.com/news