News

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is aware of a cyber incident impacting Northern Minerals Limited. 

Northern Minerals Limited's investigation into the cyber incident has found the personal details of some of its current and former employees were compromised, including copies of Australian and foreign passports.    

Northern Minerals Limited is contacting impacted individuals directly and continues to investigate the matter to determine the full extent of the cyber‑attack.    

Affected Australian passports are still safe to use for international travel. Your passport number cannot be used to obtain a new passport. Robust controls are used to protect passports from identity takeover, including sophisticated facial-recognition technology.  

See our page on protecting against scams and identity theft for more advice on how to safeguard your personal information.  

You can also seek help from IDCARE, a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in providing advice and support to Australians on how to respond to identity theft.     

More advice on what you can do to protect yourself and your family from cyber security incidents is available on the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) webpage at: www.cyber.gov.au.  

If you’re a foreign passport holder whose personal details have been compromised, you should contact the government that issued your passport for further advice about what to do.  Please refer to DFAT’s list of foreign government representatives based in Australia.  

It happens very rarely, but sometimes passports go missing in the mail.

If your passport goes missing in the mail, you must do one of the following:

• call us on 131 232 
• contact your nearest Australian diplomatic or consular mission if you’re overseas.

To be eligible for a free replacement passport, you must contact us within 60 days from when we mailed you the passport.

Hackers using bots can crack about 60% of passwords in less than 60 minutes, and 45% in less than 60 seconds.

To protect your personal information, we’ve introduced multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all AusPassport accounts. MFA makes it harder for cybercriminals to take over your account as it adds an extra layer of protection. Even if your password is guessed or stolen, your account can’t be accessed without a unique authentication code from your email or phone number.

We also strongly recommend you follow these general password security tips:

• change your password to a strong, unique passphrase that uses 4 or more random words*
• use a password that’s easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess
• use a password manager
• don’t re-use the same password across multiple online accounts
• don’t save passwords in your web browser
• don’t share your password with anyone
• don’t let anyone see your screen if you use the ‘show password’ option.

* You can find the specific AusPassport account password requirements on our website.

You can test the strength of your password and whether it’s been involved in a breach or leak by visiting the passwords page on the NSW Government website.

You should report passport theft as soon as possible to protect your identity. Contact us on 131 232, or if you’re overseas contact your nearest Australian diplomatic or consular mission. 

When you tell us your passport has been lost or stolen, we cancel it immediately and we tell border authorities in Australia and overseas. This helps prevent identity criminals from misusing your passport. 

You should also report any theft to the Australian police and to the local police if you’re overseas.

Find more information about lost or stolen passports on our website.

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