It was the Russians! Cyber network named by AFP as data hacking culprits
Police have confirmed a Russian network was behind the hacking of customer data held by Australia’s largest health insurer Medibank.
āWe believe those responsible for the breach are in Russia,ā Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw told reporters in Canberra on Friday.
āOur intelligence points to a group of loosely affiliated cyber criminals who are likely responsible for past significant breaches in countries across the world.ā
He said the crime had the potential to impact millions of Australians and damage a significant Australian business.
āThis cyber attack is an unacceptable attack on Australia and it deserves a response that matches the malicious and far-reaching consequences that this crime is causing.ā
Kershaw said talks would be held with Russian law enforcement about the individuals involved, who were known but would not be publicly named at this stage.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier told reporters he was ādisgusted by the perpetrators of this criminal actā, as he authorised the AFP boss to disclose the information.
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The hackers had thumbed their noses at the government after being warned the toughest ācyber gunsā in Australia are coming after them, releasing more sensitive details of customersā medical records on the dark web overnight.
The ransomware group added a file named āBoozy.csvā to the dark web, which appears to contain information related to alcohol issues after a data dump on Thursday named āabortions.csvā.
āYou telling that is disgusting (woof-woof), that we publish some data,ā they wrote on Friday in the blog seen by AAP.
āBut we warned you. we always keep our word, if we wouldnāt receive a ransom ā we should post this data, because nobody will believe us in the future.ā
The group claimed on Thursday it had demanded a ransom of $US1 for each of Medibankās 9.7 million affected customers, for a total of $US9.7 million (almost $A15 million).
Medibank CEO David Koczkar said he expected the ādisgracefulā release of customer data to continue each day.
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āItās obvious the criminal is enjoying the notoriety,ā he said.
āThe relentless nature of this tactic being used by the criminal is designed to cause distress and harm. These are real people behind this data and the misuse of their data is deplorable and may discourage them from seeking medical care.ā
Home Affairs Minister Clare OāNeil said she felt the pain of those affected.
āThere is an enormous amount of work that has gone into trying to stop harm resulting from this, trying to wrap our arms around the victims of this horrible crime,ā she told Nineās Today Show.
Itās believed the hackers are using medical reference codes to sift through the data they stole to generate files on specific health issues.
The AFP and the Australian Signals Directorate were the ācyber gunsā of the federal government and were working hard to disrupt the hackers, Ms OāNeil said.
The minister said Australian businesses needed to wake up from the āslumberā about cybersecurity threats.
The first wave of files dropped on Wednesday included names, birthdates, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, health claims information, Medicare numbers for Medibankās ahm customers, and passport numbers for international student clients.
Medibank has confirmed details of almost 500,000 health claims have been stolen, along with personal information, after the group hacked into its system last month.
No credit card or banking details were accessed.
Medibank has created a one-stop shop of mental health and other support services that can be accessed by affected customers via its website.
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