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The fallout from one of Australia’s worst data breaches continues to unfold, as Russian hackers successfully stole approximately 9.7 million customers’ sensitive data from Medibank in October 2022.
The hackers, believed to be of Russian origin, had initially demanded a USD 9.7 million ransom from Medibank, Australia’s largest health insurer, to return the stolen data. However, when Medibank refused to pay the ransom, the hackers began publishing tranches of the stolen data on various dark web platforms.
This presented a serious security risk to the company and its customers, given that many of these details were sensitive information, such as names and addresses, dates of birth and even bank account numbers.
The breach was a tremendous blow for Medibank, given that it had invested heavily in cybersecurity and data protection measures in recent years to mitigate against any potential violations. Consequently, this incident has caused significant reputational damage to the health insurer, now facing numerous legal claims from those affected by the leak.
On December 8, Medibank announced, “It is necessary to shut down our IT systems for a security upgrade over the weekend. During this process, patients would not be able to make claims.”
The Australian government has launched an investigation into the incident, which could result in hefty fines being handed out if any negligence or security shortcomings are discovered after Medibank is found liable for failing to protect customer data adequately.
The company has also been strongly criticised by Australian privacy advocates who have called for greater transparency on how companies handle personal information and urged them to take more robust measures against cybercrime threats.
As a direct consequence of this incident, Medibank has considerably ramped up its data protection efforts with new policies and procedures, such as improved encryption standards, stricter access controls and regular penetration testing of all systems.
The company is also investing heavily in cyber-intelligence solutions such as threat detection software to detect malicious activity better before it can do any harm.
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