Australia suffers one of its largest data breach, details of millions of customer stolen

A cyber attack on Latitude Financial has resulted in the largest-known data breach on a financial institution in Australia. The consumer finance company announced that millions of Australian and New Zealand customers have been affected, including the theft of 7.9 million drivers licence numbers and 53,000 passport numbers. Additionally, less than 100 customers had a monthly financial statement stolen. The stolen records date back to "at least 2005," with an additional 6.1 million records compromised. The company disclosed that approximately 5.7 million, or 94 percent, of the compromised records were provided before 2013, as per a report from ABC news.

The scale of the cyber attack on Latitude Financial has turned out to be more severe than initially reported. The consumer finance company had disclosed on March 16 that the personal data of almost 330,000 customers had been compromised. However, on Monday, the company confirmed that the number of people affected by the data breach was in the millions, making it one of the largest such incidents on a financial institution in Australia.

The company has apologised

Latitude Financial's CEO, Ahmed Fahour, has issued a statement apologising for the cyber attack on the consumer finance company and acknowledging that the incident has caused distress among its customers. "We are rectifying platforms impacted in the attack and have implemented additional security monitoring as we return to operations in the coming days," Fahour said. The Melbourne-based company has also promised to reimburse customers who choose to replace their stolen ID documents. In an announcement to the ASX (Australian Securities Exchange Ltd.) on Monday, Latitude Financial stated that it will be contacting all affected customers, including past customers and applicants, to provide details on the compromised information and its plans for remediation.

What is the government doing?

The Australian government has taken steps to respond to the security breach at Latitude Financial. In a statement, Minister for Cyber Security Clare O'Neil stated that the company is cooperating with the government and providing all necessary information. The government's priority is to ensure that affected customers are protected from immediate and future risks, with no financial burden falling on them. Meanwhile, the federal government has announced plans to establish a national cyber office to lead emergency responses to cyber attacks. The government has also stated its intention to strengthen Australia's cyber laws, giving the government greater powers to intervene in the aftermath of incidents like the Optus and Medibank hacks.