‘Really poor form’: Medibank yet to contact hundreds of customers with leaked personal data

Customers whose personal details – but not medical information – were posted online have been left in the dark by health insurer

As a cybersecurity worker, it didn’t take Chris* long to find his Medibank data in a dump posted to the dark web last week, but he didn’t learn about it from the health insurer.

“It’s been about a week now and Medibank have still not informed me that my data is in that dump,” he said.

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Medibank mental health data posted on dark web as Russian hackers vow to ‘keep our word’

Group releases file containing hundreds of customer claims as government considers banning ransom payments for cybercrime

Medibank customer data related to claims for mental health treatment are the latest to be posted on the dark web by the Russian hacker group.

On Sunday night the group posted a file on its dark web blog labelled “psychos”, which contains hundreds of claims from policyholders that appear to be related to mental health treatment.

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Government considers making cyber ransom payments illegal after Medibank hack

Minister Clare O’Neil says health insurer was right not to pay ransom, even as hackers threatened to release more customer data to dark web

It could soon be illegal for companies that fall victim to data breaches to pay ransoms to the hackers.

The home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, confirmed the government was examining whether new laws were needed to stop ransom payments in the wake of the Medibank and Optus data breaches.

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Australia news live: Medibank hacker demands ‘US$1 per customer’ ransom; ‘rotten egg gas’ problem in navy patrol boats

Defence officials say there is an issue with hydrogen sulphide in the vessels’ waste systems. Follow the day’s news live

Coalition’s staff cap has fuelled lack of payment integrity, Shorten says

Bill Shorten goes on to criticise the NDIS staff cap implemented by the Coalition government:

When there were 180,000 participants in the scheme, the staff numbers were around 3,500 to 4,000. And the government of the day said, ‘OK, no more staff.’

Now the scheme has half a million people-plus, and what’s happened is that we’ve brought in contractors or labour hire or partners in the community and the scheme hasn’t been well, in my opinion, supervised and well loved.

I don’t blame someone for seeking to get support for the child. What does make me wonder is the state school systems providing the support for kids with developmental and learning delays? Are they doing enough or not? How can you force their hand to do it so that these people aren’t going on the NDIS?

Originally, when the NDIS was created, it was to be a 50/50 split, at the moment the federal government is paying 64% to 66% of the scheme and states are paying in the mid 30s.

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Influencer ‘Ray Hushpuppi’ jailed over plan to launder $300m

Ramon Abbas, described by FBI as one of world’s most prolific money launderers, sentenced to 11 years

A social media influencer who called himself Ray Hushpuppi and flaunted a lavish lifestyle fuelled by his efforts to launder millions of stolen dollars has been sentenced in Los Angeles to more than 11 years in federal prison.

Ramon Abbas, 40, also was ordered by a federal judge to pay $1.7m in restitution to two fraud victims, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.

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Medibank says it won’t pay ransom for customer data stolen in cyber-attack

‘Limited chance’ such a move would result in return of data or prevent it being published, health insurer chief says

Medibank is refusing to pay a ransom to the alleged hacker who stole data relating to 9.7 million customers because there is no way the organisation can “trust criminals” not to further exploit people, the health insurer’s CEO, David Koczkar, says.

Last month Medibank revealed a hacker using compromised high-level credentials had been able to access the personal information of up to four million customers, including ahm and international student customers.

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Labor hails 15% pay rise for aged care workers – as it happened

Fair Work Commission announces 15% increase after accepting sector’s workers are underpaid. This blog is now closed

‘Cybercrime is now big business’: defence minister

We just brought you the cybersecurity minister, Clare O’Neil,’s comments on ABC News following the release of the cybercrime report.

In part we’re living more of our lives online. The pandemic has accelerated that.

Cybercrime is now big business. The average impact for small businesses is $40,000 per incident so you can say that there’s a lot of money to be made by cyber criminals.

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Cyberspace ‘a battleground’ as reports of cybercrime in Australia jump 13%

Fraud, online shopping and banking among most commonly reported crimes, but ransomware ‘most destructive’, ASD says

The number of reports of cybercrime in Australia had shot up by 13% to 76,000 in a year, or one every seven minutes, even before a series of high-profile privacy breaches hit the headlines.

These threats are imposing an increasingly heavy cost on businesses, with the average loss per cybercrime rising by 14% to $39,000 for a small business and $62,000 for a large business.

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Cyber-attack on Australian defence contractor may have exposed private communications between ADF members

Dataset from communications platform ForceNet containing up to 40,000 records may be compromised after breach on external provider

A ransomware attack may have resulted in data related to private communications between current and former Australian defence force members being compromised, with as many as 40,000 records at risk.

Defence confirmed on Monday that a dataset from ForceNet, a communications platform, may have been compromised after an attack on an external ICT service provider.

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Ministers creating ‘wild west’ conditions with use of personal phones

Unsecured mobiles, email accounts and WhatsApp chats could pose national security risk, intelligence experts warn

Ministers risk creating “wild west” conditions in matters of national security by the increased use of personal email and phones to conduct confidential business, intelligence experts and former officials have warned.

After a week tainted by a row over the use of a personal email account by the home secretary, it was revealed on Sunday that Liz Truss’s mobile is alleged to have been hacked by overseas agents.

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Mobiles are inherently insecure, which might be a surprise to British politicians | Dan Sabbagh

We may never know just what happened with Liz Truss’s mobile, but it’s clear that ministers need to up their security game

It is no longer news to point out that a mobile phone, if hacked, can be the ultimate tool for surveillance. But the question is whether it is a surprise to British politicians – and whether they are using their devices sensibly or carelessly.

We will almost certainly never know precisely what happened to Liz Truss’s phone. The then foreign secretary had to abruptly drop her main number and take up a new, government-issued handset in the summer, just as it emerged she was likely to be the next prime minister after Boris Johnson.

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Government urged to investigate report Liz Truss’s phone was hacked

Breach discovered during Tory leadership in summer but details suppressed, the Mail on Sunday reports

The government has been urged to launch an urgent investigation after reports that Liz Truss’s phone was hacked.

The breach was discovered when Truss, then the foreign secretary, was running for the Tory leadership in the summer, but details were suppressed by the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, the Mail on Sunday reported.

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‘Buying bad’: the black market where access to hacked Australian data can cost just $500

Some sites that mediate the sale of hacked data use Reddit-style upvoting systems to weed out scammers and law enforcement

When personal data is stolen in a breach, such as the recent high-profile attacks on Optus and Medibank, it often begins a journey through a shadowy criminal marketplace which follows surprisingly traditional models of supply and demand.

Passwords, personal information, copies of identity documents and contact details of victims may pass through a web of transactions, mediated in online forums or hidden on the dark web, and denominated in cryptocurrency, before ending up in the hands of those who plan to exploit them.

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Cybercrime in Australia has been on the rise for years, but Optus and Medibank have been wake-up calls

Experts say the recent prominence of data breaches is just companies being more forthcoming and the media more focused on reporting them

It might seem like data breaches are occurring more frequently than ever in the wake of the Optus cyber-attack, but while cybercrime incidents are constantly on the rise, Australia isn’t really a hot new target.

Since Optus first disclosed its massive data breach at the end of September, breaches or attacks have been reported by Medibank, Woolworths’ MyDeal, EnergyAustralia, Vinomofo and Medlab.

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Medibank confirms hacker had access to data of all 3.9 million customers

Data breach, which exposed all Medibank, ahm and international student data, could cost health insurer $35m

Medibank has revealed all of its 3.9 million customers have had their data exposed to a hacker, in a significant escalation of the cyber-attack on the Australian health insurer.

In an update to the Australian Stock Exchange on Wednesday, the company said that since Tuesday’s announcement that all customer data may have been exposed, the investigation into the breach has now established the hacker had access to all Medibank, ahm and international student customers’ personal data, and significant amounts of health claims data.

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Outsourcer Interserve fined £4.4m for failing to stop cyber-attack

Watchdog says phishing email enabled hackers to steal personal information of 113,000 employees

Britain’s data watchdog has fined the construction group Interserve £4.4m after a cyber-attack that enabled hackers to steal the personal and financial information of up to 113,000 employees.

The attack occurred when Interserve ran an outsourcing business and was designated a “strategic supplier to the government with clients including the Ministry of Defence”. Bank account details, national insurance numbers, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion were among the personal information compromised.

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Optus data breach: customers yet to be reimbursed for passport replacements

Government has not finalised process with the telco for passports to be replaced for free after 100,000 numbers were released

The federal government has not yet finalised a process with Optus for customers affected by its recent data breach to have their passports replaced for free, with no victims yet having their costs reimbursed nearly a month on from Anthony Albanese’s public demand.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says about 100,000 passport numbers were released in the Optus breach but that customers do not actually need to replace their passports, citing crackdowns on the use of those documents for identity verification processes.

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EnergyAustralia latest to be hit by cyber-attack as details of hundreds of customers exposed

Electricity company says attack accessed information on 323 customers but ‘no evidence’ data was transferred elsewhere

EnergyAustralia has become the latest company to be targeted by a cyber-attack, with hundreds of customers’ details exposed.

In a statement released late on Friday, the electricity company said 323 residential and small business customers were affected by unauthorised access to their online platform, My Account.

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Serial cyberstalker Matthew Hardy has jail term cut

Jail term reduced by a year owing to legal oversight in original sentencing at Chester crown court

The court of appeal has reduced the jail sentence of a serial cyberstalker who harassed women by creating fake social media accounts to spread fake claims about them.

Matthew Hardy, 31, was jailed for nine years last January at Chester crown court after pleading guilty to stalking involving fear of violence and harassment after breaching a restraining order.

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News live: Australia supports inquiry into Iran death, Wong says; first majority female high court bench

Attorney general Mark Dreyfus has announced the appointment of justice Jayne Jagot to the high court. Follow the day’s news live

Queensland seeking partnerships from the federal government in renewable plan

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, was asked to clarify how long the state will keep exporting coal for:

There’s still going to be countries that need our coal and, of course, the metallurgical coal [that] is needed for steel production. Let’s be clear about that. Until there’s alternative to manufacturing steel, the world will still need metallurgical coal.

The plan is $62bn. We have a $6bn down payment on that … we’ve already got $11bn worth of private investment coming in.

But there will be even more coming in as well. So roughly, it will be around, over $30bn, between $30bn and $40bn we’re providing, but we’re seeking partnerships from the federal government.

Well, in Europe, of course, there’s a lot of reliance on gas coming in from the Ukraine and parts of Russia, is my understanding.

But what we’re doing here very clearly is [ensuring] that the hydro dams get built. And then, as the hydro dams come online, that’s when you start phasing down the reliance on coal-fired power stations.

We’re building sea walls as we speak. People are having to build their houses on 7-to-12-foot stilts above the ground because of the water coming underneath. Ancestral graves that the ABC has reported on are being washed away. This is happening in Queensland. It’s not just an island on the Pacific ocean. It is happening to Queenslanders. To Australians. And we all have a duty to look after one another.

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