New South Wales police in Australia have arrested a 27-year-old former Western Sydney College (WSU) pupil for allegedly hacking into the College’s techniques on a number of events, beginning with a scheme to acquire cheaper parking.
Particularly, the lady, recognized by native media experiences as Birdie Kingston, is accused of unauthorized entry, knowledge theft, and compromising college infrastructure since 2021, affecting a whole lot of workers and college students.
“Since 2021, Western Sydney College skilled a collection of cyber hacks involving unauthorized entry, knowledge exfiltration, system compromise, and misuse of college infrastructure – together with threatening the sale of pupil data on the darkish net,” reads the NSW Police press launch.
“It’s estimated that a whole lot of college workers and college students have been affected by these incidents.”
WSU is a serious academic institute in Australia providing a variety of undergraduate, postgraduate, and analysis packages to 47,000 college students. It employs over 4,500 common and seasonal workers members and operates on a price range of $600 million (USD).
The tutorial institute disclosed a number of safety breaches since final yr. In Could 2024, it confirmed unauthorized entry to its Microsoft Workplace 365 atmosphere that had began in Could 2023, exposing 7,500 people.
In April 2025, WSU introduced that it had suffered two extra safety incidents. The primary incident concerned the compromise of one of many College’s single sign-on (SSO) techniques between January and February 2025, exposing roughly 10,000 college students.
The second incident concerned the leak of stolen knowledge belonging to members of the WSU neighborhood on the darkish net, which started on November 1, 2024.
The NSW police suspect that Kingston is behind these incidents and others, charging her with 20 offenses.
Through the raid and arrest at her residence in Kingswood, police investigators discovered and seized pc tools and cellular units that will comprise incriminating proof.
Her actions allegedly escalated from manipulating parking entry and tutorial data to threatening the sale of pupil knowledge on the darkish net.
Australian media declare that the police formally warned Kingston in September 2023, when she lived on the WSU campus, however she reportedly wasn’t deterred and continued her hacking actions in opposition to the College.
Primarily based on the identical experiences, the hacker stole over 100GB of confidential knowledge from WSU techniques through the years, altered tutorial outcomes, secured discounted parking on the College, threatened to promote stolen pupil knowledge on darknet boards, and demanded a ransom cost in cryptocurrency value $40,000.
BleepingComputer has contacted WSU for a touch upon the hacker’s arrest, and a spokesperson has supplied the under assertion:
“Western Sydney College has been working with NSW Police to help their investigations. These cyber incidents have had a big impression on the College neighborhood and we’re grateful for the assist of NSW Police. As this matter is now earlier than the Court docket, the College can not present additional remark,” Western Sydney College
Replace 6/27 – Added WSU assertion
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