Latitude refuses to pay hackers’ ransom demand

Consumer lender Latitude Financial Group has confirmed that hackers who stole the details of 14 million consumers last month have made a ransom demand. Latitude did not specify how much was demanded, or when the demand was made, but said it will not pay.

“Latitude will not pay a ransom to criminals. Based on the evidence and advice, there is simply no guarantee that doing so would result in any customer data being destroyed, and it would only encourage further extortion attempts on Australian and New Zealand businesses in the future,” Latitude’s new chief executive Bob Belan said in a statement to the ASX this morning.

“Our priority remains on contacting every customer whose personal information was compromised and to support them through this process,” he added.

The stolen information includes the driver’s licence numbers of 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand customers and covers the majority of current and former Latitude customers.

Latitude provides consumer finance services to Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys and Apple, and recently signed up David Jones. The victims include current and former Latitude customers stretching back more than 10 years, as well as applicants for its consumer credit services that include Harvey Norman’s interest-free loans.

The Latitude announcement came the same day that Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil said the government has begun a series of cybersecurity exercises with the banking and finance sector because of its importance to the functioning of the economy.

“The groups that are conducting cyberattacks are becoming more professionalised, industrialised, powerful and effective,” she said.

“We’re conducting exercises where we play through what it would look like to have a major bank, for example, come down in a cyberattack,” she said.