Student Hacked into Files on Scholarship Awarded to Australian Prime Minister’s Daughter

Freya Newman, a 21-year-old communications student from the University of Technology, Sydney, pled guilty to breaching computer records of a $60,000 scholarship granted to Tony Abbott’s daughter Frances.

At the time of the hack, Newman was working as a librarian assistant at the Whitehouse Institute of Design. She quit the next day.

“Information obtained from the school’s computer system was allegedly leaked to online magazine New Matilda, which published an article contradicting assurances by the prime minister that his daughter had received a scholarship on merit,” the Australian reports.

Newman apparently entered the login credentials of another staffer into a library computer to access Frances Abbott’s records held in the school’s student management system.

A surveillance camera captured Newman using the computer at the time the system was accessed.

She then used the library computer to email to two other Whitehouse employees from her personal email account.

One email said that she had accessed a record on Ms. Abbott that documented a meeting with Whitehouse chief executive “Leanne” (founder and owner Leanne Whitehouse) and then an award of a “managing director scholarship” three days later.

A second email said: “Got em. Might go meet Chris now to talk tactics.”

The following day, an article co-written by New Matilda editor Chris Graham carried the headline “Leaked documents cast doubt on Abbott’s $60,000 scholarship claims.”