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Private health insurer Medibank has entered a trading halt after telling customers it had received messages from a group claiming to have accessed the data of its customers in a cyber-attack.
In a statement to the Australian stock exchange on Wednesday, the company said it had received messages from a group that wished to negotiate regarding the alleged removal of customer data.
“I apologise and understand this latest distressing update will concern our customers,” Medibank’s chief executive, David Koczkar, said.
“We have always said that we will prioritise responding to this matter as transparently as possible.
“Our team has been working around the clock since we first discovered the unusual activity on our systems, and we will not stop doing that now.”
The Nine newspapers reported that it had seen messages from the hacking group which claimed it had stolen 200 gigabytes of sensitive information from Medibank, and had threatened to contact its 1,000 “most prominent customers” using their own personal information as a “warning shot”.
The company said it was working urgently to establish if the group’s claim that it had accessed customer information was true.
It said that based on its “ongoing forensic investigation we are treating the matter seriously at this time”.
It is unclear what personal information may have been compromised, but the company said that it held a range of “necessary” customer information.
The insurer confirmed its systems had not been encrypted by ransomware.
The company has entered a trading halt until at least Friday.
Clare O’Neil, the federal home affairs minister, said it was a “significant cyber security incident” and she had spoken to the company’s chief executive, David Koczkar, and the heads of the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Federal Police.
Her department was “working with all relevant agencies across government” following the incident, which was reminder for businesses to be vigilant against such attacks.
It is the latest in a series of recent cyber-attacks targeting Australian consumers, including on Optus, the wine retailer VinoMofo, and MyDeal, an online shopping site owned by Woolworths.
The Optus hack in late September exposed the details of about 10 million people, and is considered on of the largest in Australian history.
The other attacks also remain under investigation.
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