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Pro-Russian and Pro-Palestinian hacktivists are targeting Australian government agencies and education institutions in an effort to pressure the nation on its stance on Israel.
DieNet, a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack group that first appeared on March 7, 2025, claimed DDoS attacks on both the Official NSW Government Job Portal and the University of Western Australia.
The group claimed in the early hours of this morning (August 19, 2025) to have launched a DDoS on iworkfor.nsw.gov.au, the NSW government’s official job portal, saying it was part of a push to encourage the government to boycott Israel in light of its activity in Gaza.
“The Official NSW Government Job Portal is Down by DieNet.” the group wrote on Telegram.
“This is a kind of pressure directed against the Australian government to reverse its decisions supporting Israel, and to move towards a serious boycott of Israel.
“The turn is now for all the countries that support killing from behind the scenes. Many of them have begun to feel the heat and the pressure and have begun to back down from their decisions, but DieNet want [sic] more than that.”
According to the group, the site was down for an hour. DieNet has also said it will begin targeting other Australian government sites in the future as part of its campaign.
“DieNet will visit some other Australian government sites soon…”
In the early hours of the day prior (August 18, 2025), the hacktivist group also claimed a DDoS attack on the University of Western Australia, posting a check-host link as proof.
“Down For 1 Hour,” the group wrote.
It is unclear if the DDoS has any connection to the cyber attack that the University of WA suffered earlier this month, leading to all staff and student credentials being force reset.
DieNet said that the Australian public is beginning to “wake up” to the conflict in Gaza, citing an example of an Israeli man being told to leave a barbershop after the owner learned of his Israeli Defence Force (IDF) service.
“A barbershop owner expels an Israeli man in Melbourne, Australia, after accusing him of killing children after learning of his military service in the Israeli occupation army.
“The Australian people are beginning to wake up. We hope this will extend to the government, and we will push for this to happen.”
Additionally, in what is likely a comment on Israel’s action in Gaza, DieNet said its actions were intentionally designed not to impact civilians.
“As you may have noticed, we did not attack anything related to Australian civilians, we only attacked government sites as a warning.”
Australia has not yet recognised the State of Palestine, but plans to do so next month at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, on the condition that terrorist group and Gaza’s governing body Hamas has no role in the future governance of the state.
However, the move has received heavy criticism from the US, with the nation’s ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee calling the move “unfortunate and disappointing,” and said there was “an enormous level of disappointment and some disgust.”
Huckabee also suggested that he never received any notice of the decision, which surprised him.
"As Israel's closest partner, we would have expected that there would have been some heads up," he said.
However, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said she had notified US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of the move.
In response to Australia’s planned recognition of Palestine, Israel has revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority.
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