14 million personal records stolen from Australian service provider

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14 million personal records stolen from Australian service provider

In this file photo taken on Aug 27, 2021, people wearing face masks walk through the streets of the central business district in Sydney. PHOTO AFP SYDNEY - Australia's financial service provider Latitude confirmed on Monday that 14 million personal records have been stolen from the company due to a recent cyber attack.

In its update on the incident, Latitude said approximately 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand driver license numbers were stolen, of which approximately 3.2 million, or 40 percent, were provided to the company in the last 10 years.

According to the update, 53,000 passport numbers were exposed, while less than 100 customers reported a monthly financial statement leaked. Customers who choose to replace their ID documents will be reimbursed by Latitude.

An additional 6.1 million records, dating back to 2005, were stolen, of which approximately 5.7 million, or 94 percent, were provided prior to 2013, according to the company.

These records contain some but not all of the following personal information, such as name, address, telephone and date of birth.

It is hugely disappointing that such a large number of additional customers and applicants have been affected by this incident. Latitude Financial Services CEO Ahmed Fahour said we will apologize unreservedly.

We continue to work around the clock to restore our operations. He said that we are correcting platforms impacted in the attack and we have implemented additional security monitoring as we return to operations in the coming days.

The incident is currently under investigation by the Australian Federal Police, with no suspicious activity observed in Latitude's systems since March 16.

Latitude first reported the cyber attack on March 16, acknowledging that it resulted in the theft of over 300,000 customer documents. The employee login credentials were believed to have been used to steal the data that was held by the company's service providers.