Cybersecurity
New Zealand Budget in Disarray as Treasury Systems Hacked
- Treasury Secretary calls in police after 2,000 attempts found
- Finance Minister calls hacking of budget ‘extremely serious’
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
This article is for subscribers only.
New Zealand’s annual budget has been thrown into disarray after the opposition National Party released parts of it early and the Treasury Department said its computer systems had been hacked.
Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf has called in police after finding evidence of more than 2,000 attempts to access secret budget documents on its computer systems since Sunday night, he told Radio New Zealand on Wednesday. While the information obtained appeared to match some of the material released yesterday by opposition leader Simon Bridges, Makhlouf refused to directly link the National Party to the hack. The budget is due for release tomorrow.