Hackers Have Already Cost Medibank $26m

Uploaded on 2023-03-21 in TECHNOLOGY--Hackers, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Health & Welfare, BUSINESS-Services-Financial

The biggest cyber attack in Australia’s history has sparked an exodus of customers from Medibank, the health insurer, and it says it has started to return to policyholder growth. Medibank has now revealed that it has suffered $26.2 million AUD (£14.7 million) in cyber crime-related costs following the hack of its systems in the second half of 2022.

Medibank said, “Given the nature of this crime, we now believe that all of the customer data accessed could have been stolen by the criminal.”

It expects its cyber crime losses to amount to $40-$45 million for the 2023 financial year. This involves additional investments in IT security, but excludes further customer and other remediation, regulatory, or litigation-related costs.

The attacker accessed its systems through a stolen username and password belonging to a third-party IT service provider, Medibank has said. This was used to access the company’s network through a misconfigured firewall which lacked an additional digital security certificate. Medibank chief executive David Koczkar says the embattled health insurer is prioritising contacting its most vulnerable customers after it ruled out paying a ransom, telling nearly 10 million Australians to prepare to see their information online or to receive a call from the hackers.

Four weeks after first telling government no customer data had been taken, Medibank was forced to admit 9.7 million Australians have had their data stolen, including people who could be in significant danger if their information is misused.

Recently the company said it has implemented greater security controls, including ensuring its firewall authentication is fully configured across its entire network. It has also improved its network security to help defend against the 18 million perimeter attacks it experiences every day.

Medibank was evidently considered a juicy target, having announced a gross profit of $233.3 million, an increase of almost 6% compared to the previous half-year. Over the past year, the company has gained around 35,000 customers, despite losing 13,000 clients following the attack in the second half of 2022.

Medibank: ITPro: The Australian: ABC: AFR:

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