Latitude Financial notifies insurers over malicious cyber attack

Latitude Financial has notified its insurers over a “sophisticated, well-organised and malicious cyber attack” that has involved large-scale information theft affecting past and present customers across Australia and New Zealand.

The company reported the incident on March 16 and earlier this week said about 330,000 customers and applicants had information stolen, mostly involving copies of drivers’ licences and driver licence numbers. Copies of passports or passport numbers represented less than 4% of the details stolen and Medicare numbers less than 1%.

“Latitude maintains insurance policies to cover risks, including cyber security risks, and we have notified our insurers in respect of the incident,” the company said.

In a further update yesterday, Latitude says to the best of its knowledge no compromised data has left its systems since Thursday last week, but its review has uncovered further evidence of large-scale information theft.

“Our people are working urgently to identify the total number of customers and applicants affected and the type of personal information that has been stolen,” it says.

“Our focus remains firmly on containing this attack, progressing our forensic review of the actions taken by the attacker and restoring operational capability gradually over the coming days.”

The firm has engaged external cyber security experts, the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Australian Federal Policy and relevant government agencies. It’s also contacted not-for-profit IDCARE to help support those impacted.

The non-bank lender, which offers loans and credit cards, has said it has isolated some of its technology platforms, which means it’s not currently taking on new customers.

The company last August said it was selling its Latitude Insurance Holdings (Hallmark) business, which was largely closed to new business during the covid period, to St Andrew’s Insurance Group.

Previously Latitude had provided products such as repayment protection insurance, personal loan insurance and credit card insurance.