Dell data breach may cause breach of Australian Tax Office data - Data breach may have enabled hackers access to Dell laptops, computers

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 

Dell has alerted customers to the fact of s data breach (see above), and the hacker claims to have the details of about 50 Million Dell customers. This writer can confirm that his laptop was hacked after that breach, and that the hacking has caused a loss of all data. What the data will be used for is left to be seen.  

Dell's clients includes corporations such as the Australian Tax Office (see story below) and what the hacker and his customers might be capable of doing with data about those corporations is not something that Dell is addressing.Dell and its CEO Michael Dell have refused to respond to this writer's emails about the breach, loss of data, and laptop that is possibly compromised to the point where it is no longer usable. 

Dell is very clear that its products remain the property of Dell even after purchase. 

TO BE READ WITH 

ATO buys 12,000 new Dell devices

By Justin Hendry

May 23 2019 12:18PM

To replace end-of-life HP fleet.


The Australian Taxation Office is poised to rollout more than 12,000 new Dell devices over the next four years to replace its end-of-life fleet of Hewlett-Packard desktops and laptops.

Source: Dell


The national revenue collection agency last month signed off on the desktop and laptop environment refresh with the IT conglomorate at the cost of $12.1 million.

Under the deal, Dell will supply 12,000 Dell 7050 desktops and 250 Dell E5480 laptops between April 2019 and May 2023.

A spokesperson told iTnews the procurement, which is part of the ATO’s “normal refresh cycle”, was needed to ensure staff have “up-to-date” devices to support the agency's operations.

“The contract is to refresh existing Hewlett-Packard desktops and laptops, that are beyond end of life,” the spokesperson said.

However the new devices won’t extend to all ATO staff, with the agency’s average staffing level currently sitting at more than 17,000.


The ATO’s long-standing end user computing partner, Leidos, will manage the rollout of the devices and the disposal of the old.

Leidos is one of the ATO's three main IT suppliers, alongside DXC for centralised processing and Optus for manage network services.

The last major upgrade of the agency's desktop environment occurred back in 2009, according to the spokesperson, prior to the end of its monolithic IT outsourcing agreement with EDS (now DXC).

However, other "smaller, focused refreshes" have taken place over the last ten years, the largest of which occurred in preparation for the 2017 tax time.

Updated 3:30pm: To include information on the last major desktop refresh.
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