- 07 5598 1166
- office@hoymack.com
- Mon-Fri: 8:30am - 5pm
- 2/22 Seventh Ave, Palm Beach Qld 4221
3rd June, 2025
Hoy McCormack & Moloney recently experienced an incident involving unauthorised access to a portion of our IT environment which resulted in some minor disruption to our systems and services.
As soon as we became aware of the incident, we enacted our business continuity plan to restore our systems as quickly as possible and commence an investigation into what happened.
We have been working with external experts to ensure that all appropriate steps are taken in response to this incident and that we have undertaken the necessary measures to ensure our systems are secure.
As part of our investigation, we identified that personal information related to some of our clients may have been subject to unauthorised access, specifically Tax File Numbers. Specific remedial advice regarding your Tax File Number is set out below.
As a precautionary measure, we recommend that all our clients remain vigilant against the potential risk of receiving phishing or other scam communications from any parties claiming to be from Hoy McCormack & Moloney. We provide some general cyber security guidance below.
We want to reassure clients that our usual services remain unaffected.
We take cybersecurity extremely seriously and have notified the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) about this incident.
We understand this news may cause concern and we want to thank our staff and clients for their ongoing support as we work to resolve this as swiftly as possible.
If you have any questions, please contact our dedicated response team.
Samantha Moloney
Principal
We understand our clients Tax File Number’s (TFN) was may have been involved in the affected dataset. For example, your TFN may have been provided to us on a Conveyancing Questionnaire, Notice of Assessment (NOA) or Income Tax Return.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is able to set up monitoring and apply protective measures for your TFN to prevent potential future misuse.
If you wish to contact the ATO to set up monitoring and apply protective measures, you can contact them on 1800 467 033 (available 8:00 am to 6:00 pm AEST, Monday to Friday). More information is available on the ATO website.
We encourage you to stay alert to the possibility of phishing emails and scams. If you receive an unexpected email, call, or message, especially one asking for personal information or money with a
sense of urgency, or with obvious spelling and grammatical errors, be cautious. Verify the sender’s identity through official channels before responding and sharing any information.
Look closely at the sender’s email address and any links provided. Scammers often use addresses that look very similar to legitimate ones, sometimes with just a single letter changed in the company name. Carefully check the sender address and hover over any links to see where the actual address before clicking. Practice the same caution with websites – if you are suspicious of a website address, do not click on the link or provide login details.
Create strong passwords using a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoid using the same password on more than one account. Consider using a password manager to keep track of them.
Whenever possible, enable MFA on your online accounts for an extra layer of security, including on your email, banking and social media accounts. MFA typically involves receiving a code on your phone or email that you must enter in addition to your password.
Use antivirus software and keep it updated. Ensure your devices are also protected with strong passwords or biometric security features.
Read the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch guidance for protecting yourself from scams here.
You may also want to read the OAIC’s tips for further guidance about protecting your identity here.