Australia’s federal parliament was the target of a brute force cyber-attack that lasted less than 24 hours in late March which resulted in the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) staff losing access to their phones and tablets for 10 days. “On March 26, 2021, the DPS was the subject of malicious cyber activity,” Scott Ryan, president of the Senate, told an estimates hearing on Monday. “A malicious actor sought to access the DPS network accounts through MobileIron [managed] devices using unsophisticated brute force tradecraft.” “The malicious activity lasted just under 24 hours. It was unsuccessful, and DPS networks were not compromised.” The network controls implemented were successful in blocking the attack. But they also affected legitimate users when accounts were locked down to prevent compromise, causing an outage to department-issued phones and tablets from March 27 to April 5. “DPS has been and will remain an attractive target for malicious cyber …