Who’s been hacked? List of companies who have suffered data breaches
Struggling to keep up with who has been hacked recently? Check our full list of data-breached businesses and how your personal details may have been exposed.
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Every week, a different company is launched into the headlines as the result of a data breach.
A number of large companies have been hacked in the past few months, seeing people’s private and confidential information stolen and exposed.
Here is a list of the companies who have suffered a recent hack attack and how it can affect you.
MEDIBANK DATA BREACH
National health insurer Medibank suffered the most recent known data hack which saw some of the personal information from 9.7 million current and former customers – potentially including the Prime Minister – leaked online this week.
Russian hackers, known by the group name REvil, are believed to be behind the hack, which includes intimate details about patients who have been treated for drug and alcohol use as well as pregnancy terminations.
The cyber attackers initially asked Medibank to pay $US10m ($A15.6m) per impacted customer before “discounting” the demand to $US1 ($A1.60) per person impacted.
OPTUS DATA BREACH
In September this year, telco giant Optus was the victim of a massive data breach.
The cyber attack led to the private details of millions of Aussies being stolen, such as contact details, as well as passport and driver's licences.
About 9.8 million customers were caught up in the cyber attack, but there are more than 7.7 million people who did not have ID numbers accessed by hackers.
MY REWARDS INTERNATIONAL DATA BREACH
Shortly after the Optus breach, it was widely reported that thousands of Telstra employees had personal details stolen by hackers where the names and email addresses of 30,000 employees – both current and past – were shared on the same platform as the stolen Optus data.
However, the information had been obtained as a result of a breach of a third-party platform called Work Life NAB, which is obsolete and was used by other organisations and not just Telstra.
The platform was run by Pegasus Group Australia, which is a subsidiary of MyRewards International Ltd.
Telstra confirmed there was no breach of their systems and no customer data was involved.
DIALOG DATA BREACH
Days later, Optus’ parent company Singtel was caught up two data breaches.
The company owns IT consulting firm Dialog which was the victim of a breach resulting in the personal information of 1000 of its staff both former and current as well as 20 clients published on the dark web.
Dialog assists the big four banks and government organisations.
WOOLWORTHS MYDEAL DATA BREACH
About 2.2 million customers at the Woolworths-owned online retailer MyDeal were rocked by a data breach in mid-October that exposed names, email addresses and phone numbers.
The company confirmed a “compromised user credential” was used to expose customer data.
Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci apologised for the security breach, but said its own customer data was not compromised.
AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE HACK
A group of hackers known as Guacamaya targeted a Colombian government database which exposed the details of 35 Australian Federal Police operations past and current.
The AFP’s law enforcement counterparts in Colombia are understood to have failed to inform them of the potentially devastating breach, which revealed the scale of drug importations into Australia that were conducted through a myriad of businesses to launder drug money.
It is understood the AFP took steps to move their officers and operatives out of harm’s way before the leak was made public.
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