‘Thousands’ of members at risk after Victoria Racing Club cyber attack

The VRC has contacted more than 30,000 members and employees over fears hackers have accessed their data after a cyber attack.

The Victoria Racing Club has reported the cyber attack. Picture: Jay Town

The Victoria Racing Club has been hit by a cyber attack, prompting fears that hackers have accessed the data of more than 30,000 members and employees.

In a letter to its members on Friday afternoon, the organisation said it reported the recent “cyber incident” to authorities.

“As soon as we detected the incident, we took immediate steps to contain the incident and engage leading experts to assist with our response and investigation,” the letter read.

“This ongoing investigation has identified evidence that an unauthorised third party has accessed our system.

“We are urgently investigating to determine whether there has been unauthorised access to our data.”

As of June last year, the VRC had more than 33,100 members.

The VRC told its members there had been no disruption to its operations, with the organisation operating as normal.

“We have reported the incident to the Australian Cyber Security Centre,” the letter continued.

“As our investigation progresses, we will keep you updated with information that is relevant to you as quickly as possible.

“We are committed to communicating in a timely and transparent manner.”

The VRC said there had been no disruption to its operations. Picture: Vince Caligiuri

VRC chief executive Steve Rosich apologised for the hack.

“We are informing employees, members, partners and sponsors about the incident, to encourage them to practise cyber vigilance and remain alert for scams while our investigation is ongoing,” he said in a statement.

“We will communicate directly if our investigation identifies evidence that personal information has been affected in line with our obligations.

“The protection of all of our stakeholders’ information is our upmost priority and we apologise for any concern that this incident has caused.”

All VRC members were urged to remain alert to any suspicious emails, texts and calls and to not open links that look suspicious.

It comes after a spate of cyber attacks on organisations over the past two years.

In 2022, Optus was targeted, affecting more than 10 million current and former customers.

About 2.8 million customers had their personal details including drivers licence numbers, home addresses and dates of birth taken, while about 7 million had their email addresses and phone numbers stolen.

Just a month later, Medibank was hit which led to 9.7 million customers being exposed.

Data was also recently breached at Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Fire Rescue Victoria, Arts Centre Melbourne and the Victorian court system.