Hacker holds Australian health insurer’s data for ransom

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A cybercriminal is holding for ransom an Australian health insurer’s customer data including diagnoses and treatments, in the nation’s second major privacy breach in a month. Trade in Medibank shares has been halted on the Australian Securities Exchange since Wednesday when police were alerted that the company had been contacted by what it described as a “criminal” who wanted to negotiate over the stolen personal data of customers. Medibank said Thursday the criminal had provided a sample of 100 customer policies from a purported haul of 200 gigabytes of stolen data. The government said the culprit had demanded Medicare pay a ransom. It came a month after a cyberattack stole from telecommunications company Optus the personal data of 9.8 million customers.