ACT suspends camping and visitor booking portal after data breach

The ACT government has temporarily stopped using an online camping and tourism booking platform after a cyber incident potentially exposed customers' personal details. Some Canberra residents have since received suspicious messages, prompting warnings about follow-up scams.

The third-party service, Bookeasy, handles bookings and permits for parks and reserves in the territory and in other states. Its records include email addresses, home addresses, telephone numbers and booking information. VisitCanberra accommodation and attraction bookings were also affected, according to the territory government. Systems in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia were reported hacked during the same week.

Bookeasy said it took immediate containment measures after a security alert and appointed cyber-security specialists to investigate and advise it. Its investigation had identified a potential compromise of personal and reservation information. It said it had not detected access to credit-card details. That is the company's finding so far, not a declaration that every aspect of the investigation is complete.

The government emailed about 6,000 users about possible scam and phishing attempts. Executive group manager Bren Burkevics said some campers had received suspicious approaches through email or WhatsApp. He urged particular caution because information from a booking could be used to make an approach look convincing.

Burkevics said the portal was suspended as a precaution while officials assessed the incident and the possible unauthorised release of information. Camping remained available: people could arrange bookings directly through the government's parks service rather than the suspended platform.

The official advice was to avoid suspicious links and not give sensitive information, especially credit-card details, to third-party applications responding to unexpected messages. Users were directed to the national scam-warning service for further advice.

Illustrative empty camping tent, not an affected ACT campsite or a picture of the breach.