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Cyberattacks are rising in Australia, with several industries being targeted by cybercriminals. Recently, Australian Clinical Labs (ACL) owned Medlab Pathology business suffered a data breach that could have affected 223,000 accounts. This was the fourth major attack since September, clearly indicating that Australia is a point of interest for hackers.
The recent attacks on Australian companies include the data breach on the country’s major health insurer Medibank, telco Optus, and retailer Woolworths Group’s MyDeal. These attacks happened within two consecutive months, from September 2022 to October 2022.
Cyberattacks on Australian companies
According to ACL, the attacks compromised over 17,500 individual medical and health records, conceded the information of 28,000 credit card users and stole around 128,600 Medicare numbers.
The business added that the Medlab server had been compromised, but ACL’s larger systems were left untouched by the threat actor. It further stated that there was no evidence of any misuse of any material or demand made of Medlab or ACL.
Earlier this February, Medlab discovered that an unauthorized third party had accessed its IT system. A month later, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) notified Medlab that it might have been a victim of a ransomware outbreak.
According to ACL, it has taken forensic analysts and professionals to identify the individuals and the type of material they have access to because of the highly complex and unstructured nature of the data set under investigation.
In June, the company was also informed by the ACSC that Medlab’s data had been published on the dark web, which ACL afterwards sought to locate and erase permanently.
An ACL executive assured that the company is offering help to the affected parties and will strengthen its security to protect its data against these types of attacks in the future.
