The Australian consumer lender, Latitude Financial, has suffered a major cyber attack, leading to a data breach of passport and driver license numbers, impacting 14 million customers in Australia and New Zealand.
Latitude Financial, a consumer lender that provides personal loans and credit to its customers, has disclosed that it suffered a data breach in mid-March, which resulted in the theft of 14 million customer records.
The data that was stolen includes driver’s licenses, passports, and financial statements. Initially, the lender downplayed the impact of the cyber attack, but it has now emerged that the scale of the breach is much greater than previously reported.
According to a forensic review conducted by the company, approximately 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand driver license numbers were stolen, of which around 3.2 million were provided in the last decade.
In addition, according to ABC Australia, approximately 53,000 passport numbers and 100 monthly statements were also stolen. The breach also included 6.1 million records dating back to at least 2005, of which around 5.7 million were provided before 2013.
While the stolen records do not contain all personal information, they do include some of the following: name, address, telephone, and date of birth. The CEO of Latitude Financial, Ahmed Fahour, has expressed disappointment in the incident and apologized unreservedly to customers.
The latest news should not come as a surprise, as Australia has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons in the field of cybersecurity. From data breaches on financial institutions to defence organizations, the country has recently been rattled by cyber attacks.
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The company is working with impacted customers and applicants to minimize the risk and disruption to them, including reimbursing the cost of replacing their ID documents. Latitude Financial is also committed to conducting a full review of the incident.
The company had to take some of its systems offline when the breach was discovered and is still unable to help customers with specific account inquiries. Fahour says the company’s employees are working tirelessly to get its systems back online.
The incident has once again highlighted the importance of cybersecurity measures and the need for companies to take all necessary steps to protect their customers’ data.
