Medibank says hacker accessed data of 9.7 million customers, refuses to pay ransom - Reuters

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Medibank Private Ltd (MPL.AX), Australia's biggest wellness insurer, connected Monday said nary ransom outgo volition beryllium made to the transgression liable for a caller information theft, wherein astir 9.7 cardinal existent and erstwhile customers' information was compromised.

Highlighting findings of the firm's probe to date, Medibank confirmed that name, day of birth, address, telephone number, and email addresses for astir 9.7 cardinal existent and erstwhile customers were accessed successful the information theft.

Cyber information issues successful Australia person seen a crisp emergence successful caller times, with a government report suggesting determination is 1 onslaught each 7 minutes.

"Based connected the extended proposal we person received from cybercrime experts we judge determination is lone a constricted accidental paying a ransom would guarantee the instrumentality of our customers' information and forestall it from being published," Medibank CEO David Koczkar said.

Koczkar added that paying a ransom could promote the hacker to extort customers directly, hurting much people. The insurer reiterated that concern operations remained mean during the clip of the cyberattack, with customers continuing to entree wellness services.

Medibank warned its customers indispensable beryllium vigilant arsenic the transgression whitethorn leak the information online oregon effort to interaction customers directly.

Corporate Australia has seen a string of attacks successful conscionable the past mates of weeks, with Singapore Telecommunications' (STEL.SI) portion Optus disclosing a breach of up to 10 cardinal lawsuit accounts, and Woolworths (WOW.AX) revealing that information of millions of customers utilizing its bargain buying website had been compromised.

Medibank said it volition committee an outer reappraisal to larn from the cyberattack whilst expanding its Cyber Response Support Program.

Reporting by Roushni Nair successful Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis

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