According to the Australian Daily Telegraph, the ASIO was tipped off to the hacks by the CIA and FBI. The paper asserts that the email accounts of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and at least two other senior ministers are suspected of being hacked.
In fact, the paper adds, "the parliamentary computers of at least 10 federal ministers – including the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Defence Minister – are suspected of being hacked into in a major breach of national security."
"It is believed that several thousand emails may have been accessed", notes the paper, adding that the espionage may have been going on for more than a month.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that the Chinese may be involved in the hack, as a preliminary IP address tracing routes back to that country.
Infosecurity notes, however, that IP address spoofing, particularly amongst various country security services, is quite routine, so other entities may well be to blame.
Commenting on the story, the Softpedia newswire says that security breach was confirmed for the Daily Telegraph by four different official sources who said that Chinese intelligence agencies are among the suspects.
The computers that were hacked, says the newswire, are mainly used for communication with members of Parliament and not for conducting sensitive government business.
"News of this incident comes after a series of similar attacks affected official networks in other countries. In February, the British Foreign Office confirmed that several of its employees were targeted in spear phishing attacks", adds the newswire.
"The same month it was revealed that computers at three Canadian government departments were infected with malware. Last week the European Commission also dealt with a cyber attack on its network."