‘Case closed’: Medibank hackers release massive data file

Government Service Minister Bill Shorten told ABC’s RN Breakfast that the latest development was “shocking”.

“The people who’ve hacked Medibank are absolute criminal lowlifes,” he said.

“If people think that any government ID has been in any way breached, or they’re aware of it, contact us.”

“From our end, we’re just going to have to muscle up and put whatever resources we need in to protect people’s information.”

It is the first release of data in more than a week, with the dark web blog site offline for most of last week.

Loading

The hackers have drip-fed sensitive health information about Medibank customers on the dark web in an attempt to pressure the company into paying a ransom, which the insurer has refused to pay.

The hackers accessed the health claims data for about 160,000 Medibank customers, 300,000 ahm customers and 20,000 international customers.

Medibank later confirmed to this publication that the customers of its budget ahm brand have been the only policyholders whose private health data has been released by hackers who stole information on its entire customer base in October.

It also said that a substantial amount of the information the hackers released has been wrong, suggesting the cyber criminals have had a tough time properly extracting information from the stolen data.

Medibank has now confirmed that its analysis has shown about 25 per cent of records released on the dark web did not match its customers’ policy details.

More to come

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.