Origin Energy Data Breach Affects 900,000 Australians

Summary

Australian energy company Origin Energy has confirmed a data breach impacting 900,000 current and former customers. Threat actors gained access to sensitive information including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, account details, and partial payment card or bank account numbers. While a hacker claimed to have stolen data from 2 million customers and threatened a leak, Origin Energy has not confirmed reaching an agreement with the attacker, and the incident is under investigation by authorities.

Full text

Australian power company Origin Energy Limited said the recent data breach affects 900,000 current and former customers. Origin Energy, which has roughly 4.8 million customers, is one of Australia’s largest electricity and gas retailers. The company recently started investigating a cybersecurity incident and determined that threat actors gained access to customer data, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, account information, and partial payment card or bank account numbers. In an update shared on Tuesday, Origin revealed that it had been investigating a “potential security threat” since early July, but the initially available information suggested the threat was not credible. New information that came to light on July 22 confirmed the intrusion. An individual claiming to be behind the Origin hack said that information from 2 million customers had been obtained and suggested it would all be leaked if the company refused to pay a ransom. However, the alleged hacker later told The Australian [paywalled] that an agreement had been reached with Origin and no data would be released.Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. Origin Energy has not mentioned anything about reaching an agreement with the attacker. In fact, the company’s CEO, Frank Calabria, stated, “Importantly, this is a criminal matter that is subject to an ongoing investigation by the relevant authorities, and given this, we are constrained by the level of information we can provide about the incident at this time.” Even if the stolen data is not made public, Origin admitted that other threat actors could leverage the incident for scams. Related: Coca-Cola Confirms Data Breach After Fairlife Ransomware Attack Related: DentaQuest Data Breach Potentially Impacts Over 23 Million People Related: MCBS Data Breach Affects 1.2 Million Individuals Written By Eduard Kovacs Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering. Daily Briefing Newsletter Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing for the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and expert insights. 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