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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Josh Taylor

Medibank v the hackers: how the health insurer fell to a mass data theft

medibank logo
A group of hackers were able to access the details of 9.7 million current and former Medibank customers. Photograph: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Just after 1pm on 12 October, Medibank received a call from the Australian Signals Directorate. There had been chatter online that the Australian health insurance giant was about to become the victim of a ransomware attack, the spy agency warned.

Medibank had already determined there had been unauthorised access to its network and had shut off two backdoors that hackers had been using to get in and out of its systems.

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