Medibank’s woes worsened Wednesday as the insurer revealed data for all 4 million of its current and former customers had been accessed during a cyberattack after initially reporting no customer data had been exposed.
The fallout from a cyberattack against Medibank continues, with the health insurer revealing sensitive claims data was accessed for customers of its main Medibank branch.
Companies will face penalties of up to $50 million for serious privacy law breaches under legislation to be introduced the Attorney-General following data breaches by Optus, Medibank and Woolworths unit MyDeal.
A criminal has accessed sensitive Medibank customer data, including claims information, following a recent cyberattack.
The public and political response to the Optus incident, including the federal government’s announcement of urgent privacy law reform, suggests there may now be an appetite to test obstacles to data breach class actions, or for the government to legislate around them, say Allens lawyers Kate Austin, Valeska Bloch, Isabelle Guyot and Andrew Burns.
Woolworths unit MyDeal has begun contacting 2.2 million customers whose data has been compromised in the latest data breach to hit a major Australian company.
Medibank has become the latest company to fall prey to a cyberattack, but the health insurer says so far there’s no indication customer data has been compromised.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has opened an investigation of Optus following last month’s cyberattack, centering on the adequacy of the teleco’s privacy practices.
Optus has been hit with a class action-style complaint over a massive data breach that exposed the personal information of up to 1o million current and former customers.
Rules governing telecommunications companies will be amended in the wake of the Optus data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 10 million customers.