British hacker gets rare Australian visa after hacking the government website

Identifying a critical flaw in the Australian government system has earned a British ethical hacker one of the hardest-to-get types of visa.

Jacob Riggs, 36, the global director of information security for a large software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, was awarded the invitation-only 858 National Innovation visa, formerly known as the Global Talent visa.

It requires exceptional expertise and is awarded to fewer than 1% of applicants, such as Nobel Prize winners and Olympic medallists, SWNS reports.

During his visa application review, Riggs identified and disclosed a critical vulnerability in a live system operated by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

Riggs, who carried out the hack in July from his home in Bexley, London, said he addressed the issue as a routine security assessment and applied the same methodology he normally uses.

He tested multiple entry points before identifying a weakness the organization wasn’t aware of.

“It took roughly one hour and fifty minutes to identify the vulnerability,” he said.

The DFAT added Riggs' name to the department’s Vulnerability Disclosure Program honor roll, officially acknowledging his achievement.

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Australia’s Cyber Security Centre received over 84,700 cybercrime reports in FY2024-25, with an average self-reported cost of cybercrime per report for businesses of $80,850.

Meanwhile, state-sponsored cyber actors target critical infrastructure and networks operated by the government.

​Last November, the Australian government imposed sanctions against two Russian service providers, Media Land LLC and ML. Cloud LLC, for providing their ransomware infrastructure to malicious cyber actors and cybercriminals.

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