What happened
Western Sydney University has disclosed a series of cyber incidents affecting student and staff personal information, the earliest involving access to its Isilon storage platform from July 2023 to March 2024 [wsu-register]. Later incidents involved Office 365, the Student Management System, single sign-on, a dark-web post, and a Student Management System hosted with a third-party cloud provider [wsu-register], [wsu-apr25], [wsu]. According to the university’s October 2025 statement, data involved in the most recent incident included contact details, dates of birth, IDs, bank account details, tax file numbers, identity documents, and health, disability and legal information [wsu]. The university named the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, ACSC, AFP and National Office of Cyber Security among agencies it engaged [wsu-apr25].
Timeline
- 2023-07 to 2024-03 — Isilon storage platform accessed (9 July 2023 to 16 March 2024) [wsu-register].
- 2024-05 — Office 365 incident; about 7,500 people notified [wsu-register].
- 2024-07 — Public notice of the Isilon incident (31 July 2024) [wsu-register].
- 2024-08 to 2024-09 — Student Management System incident [wsu-register], [wsu-apr25].
- 2024-11 — Dark-web post; the university obtained an interim injunction in the NSW Supreme Court [wsu-register], [wsu-apr25].
- 2025-01 to 2025-02 — Single sign-on incident; about 10,000 students affected [wsu-register], [wsu-apr25].
- 2025-06 — The university said NSW Police arrested and charged a former student; the charges are allegations before the courts [wsu].
- 2025-06-19 to 2025-09-03 — Student Management System data accessed via a third-party cloud environment [wsu].
Current status
Disclosed, with ongoing notifications. The university said a former student was arrested and charged by NSW Police in June 2025; those charges are allegations before the courts [wsu]. Figures were not consolidated into a single official total and are not estimated here. [wsu-register]
Why it matters
A case study in repeat compromise — how a foothold in a large institution can be exploited more than once.