The Australian Financial Review has requested information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics under the Freedom of Information Act. The information that the Australian Financial Review was requesting was whether there were any occurrences of hacking against the Australian Bureau of Statistics websites and data and if so, the nature of the attacks.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that it has indeed been under cyber attack and that the hackers where trying to get access to information that could be deemed market sensitive prior to it being released to the general public.

In terms of the number of attacks, there were at least 11 incidents over the space of seven months in 2012 alone. The attempts at access involved the coordinated attacks of thousands of computers simultaneously. Fortunately for the ABS, no one was able to penetrate their defenses and the data remained safe.

If accessed, hackers may be able to correctly predict currency and share market movements and hence, the potential to make huge amounts of money.

Amazon is expected to join the hoards of companies offering video streaming set top boxes. The offering of digital content via a set top box is a competitive environment however can be a lucrative one should you have to marketing power to gain customers and content providers over others.

This is an area where Amazon has the potential to do better than it’s competitors. It is already the largest online shopping network in the world and also are one of the biggest sellers of books.

The device is expected to arrive late this year and will connect directly to your television. The company will compete directly with the likes of Apple which make the Apple TV and other device manufacturers. They will also be in direct competition with consoles such as the XBox and the Playstation.

Amazon already has a large video catalog which can be accessed from some devices so it makes sense for the company to offer this new hardware product directly.