PM also caught up in Medibank data hack
PRIME Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed he is one of 9.7 million customers caught up in the Medibank hack.
Hundreds of names, addresses, birthdates and health diagnoses were allegedly posted on the dark web and separated into a “good-list” and “naughty-list”.
It comes after the hackers gave the insurance company a 24-hour deadline to pay an unknown ransom.
“I am a Medibank Private customer as well and it will be of concern that some of this information has been put out there,” Mr Albanese said.
“We are concerned, and we will continue to monitor what is occurring.
“We need to keep people's information as safe as possible. There has been a real wake-up call for corporate Australia with both this breach, and the Optus breach.”
While Mr Albanese is a Medibank customer it is understood he has not had his personal data leaked online.
Cyber Commander Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said the AFP has now expanded Operation Guardian to include victims of the Medibank hack. The operation was originally founded to tackle the Optus data hack in late September.
“I know today there will be Medibank Private customers who will feel exposed, embarrassed and fearful because of the deeply personal information that has been stolen and dumped on the dark web,” she said.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones slammed the hackers. “They’re criminals, and we shouldn’t be paying ransom,” he told Sky News.
“We shouldn‘t be giving into these fraudsters. The moment we fold, it sends a green light to scumbags like them throughout the world that Australia is a soft target.
“We cannot give in, and we won’t give in.”
Bizarrely, the hackers apologised for not presenting the data in a “pretty” manner.
“Looking back that data is stored in not very understandable format (tables dumps) we’ll take some time to sort it out and we posting a small part of the data, in ‘human readable format (sample in json file)’ also we post all raw data,” the hacker wrote.
“We’ll continue posting data partially, need some time to do it pretty.”
The posts include dark-web links to files that appear to include valid details of Australian healthcare interactions.
Full names, phone numbers, addresses, Medicare numbers, dates of birth and genders are listed. Medibank has apologised to its customers but says it doesn’t believe paying any ransom will ensure the data isn’t released.