Medibank to go offline as it completes cybersecurity overhaul after Russian attack
The health insurer will close all stores, customer contact centres and IT systems while it overhauls online security as it reels from the nation’s biggest cyber heist.
Medibank will shut down its IT systems – also closing its retail stores and customer contact centre – this weekend to complete an overhaul of its online security as it reels from the nation’s biggest cyber heist.
Medibank, Australia’s biggest health insurer, will turn itself offline from 8.30pm on Friday until Sunday to “further strengthen our systems and enhance security protections”. Cybersecurity experts from Microsoft’s Asia Pacific operations will oversee the upgrade at Medibank’s headquarters in Melbourne.
It comes after Russian hackers infiltrated Medibank’s customer database, which contained the personal information and health records of almost 10 million current and former policyholders, after buying a high-level logon from an online criminal forum.
After Medibank refused to pay a $15m ransom, the hackers published the data online under folders with names relating to abortion, drug and alcohol abuse and various mental health disorders on the dark web.
A Medibank spokeswoman apologised for the inconvenience the cybersecurity maintenance may cause customers. During the operation customers won’t be able to access Medibank or ahm services through its websites and app, while HICAPS will not be available for on the spot claiming.
Its retail stores and customer contact centre will also be closed on Saturday while the security upgrade is completed.
“While there has been no further suspicious activity detected inside our systems since 12 October 2022, as part of the next stage of our work we are undertaking maintenance across some of our systems to further strengthen security,” the health insurer said.
“This follows the recent addition of two-factor authentication in our contact centres to increase the level of security for our customers when they call for support.
“This is a planned operation that involves IT security experts from Microsoft who are joining us in our Melbourne headquarters from across the Asia-Pacific region over the weekend. Given the complexity of the maintenance activities and the requirement to take our systems offline this operation has been in the planning stages for several weeks.”
The spokeswoman said since the cyber attack – which the health insurer disclosed in mid October – there has been “no further suspicious activity detected inside our systems”.
“Since the cybercrime we have bolstered existing monitoring, added further detection and forensics capability across the Medibank system and network and have scaled up analytical support via specialist third parties.
“We are also continuing to analyse the information released by the criminal on the dark web.
“We continue to communicate to our customers, and this week we will begin to communicate with some customers who had limited provider related data stolen, such as provider number, admission date and discharge date. Like most of the data stolen, this data has been released in a raw form and is hard to understand.”
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner launched an investigation into the Medibank hack last week, warning the health insurer could be fined up to $2.2m per breach if it finds the company did not take reasonable steps to protect customer data.
Under the Privacy Act, companies that do not take reasonable steps to protect the personal information of clients face penalties including fines, and consumers may also be compensated for privacy breaches.
It came after Maurice Blackburn said it had lodged a representative complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) against Medibank, alleging the health insurer failed to safeguard its customers’ data.
Maurice Blackburn principal lawyer Andrew Watson said the OAIC offered “an avenue of redress to the millions affected by this incident”.
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