(Reuters) -Australia’s Medibank Private Ltd said on Wednesday an unnamed hacker group had contacted it negotiate about customer data it claimed to have retrieved from the health insurer’s IT systems.
The news comes six days after Medibank reported an attempted ransomware attack on its network, but said there was no evidence that customer data had been removed.
Medibank said it was working urgently to establish if the hacker’s claims were true. It declined to give further details on the hackers or their demands.
The Melbourne-based company is working with cyber security firms and has also informed the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the government’s lead agency for cyber security.
“Medibank systems have not been encrypted by ransomware, which means usual activities for customers continue,” it added.
The incident is the latest in a spate of cyber breaches reported by Australian companies, including mobile operator Optus, recently.
(Reporting by Sameer Manekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
