A major Australian financial institution has refused to pay online fraudsters demanding a ransom for stolen personal data from an estimated 14 million customers.
Latitude Financial CEO Bob Belan said in a statement today that paying the attackers does not guarantee that your data will be destroyed as promised.
“It will only fuel further extortion attempts against companies in Australia and New Zealand in the future,” he added.
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Claire O’Neill, echoed the same sentiment in a tweet today.
“Cybercriminals cheat, lie and steal. Paying them only furthers the ransomware business model. They promise to take action in exchange for payment, but many In the case of , we again victimize companies and individuals.” she insisted.
“Latitude’s decision is consistent with the advice of the Australian Government.”
Read more about ransomware: Australia considers banning ransomware payments after Medibank breach.
Companies like Latitude Financial are now in the majority, according to a recent survey by Trend Micro. Only an estimated 10% of victim organizations currently pay their extortionists, a relatively small percentage that forces them to pay more per breach than in years past. I know
And, as calculated using AI tools, paying companies are effectively backing 6-10 new attacks.
Latitude Financial initially claimed that only about 100,000 identification documents and 225,000 customer records were lost in the March breach.
However, after admitting that the hackers stole 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand driver’s license numbers and 6.1 million records dating back to 2005, including names, addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth, those numbers were quickly dismantled. was forced to recalculate .
It is not yet clear which ransomware group was behind the attack, but it is believed that the compromised employee’s credentials provided initial access to the network.
Latitude Financial is Australia’s largest non-bank lender, offering a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service to many retailers across the country.
