BREAKING NEWS, Feds Name Russian Medibank Hacker
The Federal Government have named a Russian individual as being responsible for the hack attack om Medibank, it’s not known at this stage as to whether they have intelligence on who hacked Optus.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil have revealed, that the man behind the hack was Aleksandr Ermakov.
The identity was discovered by the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Federal Police who have now linked the Russian citizen to the attack.”
The Russian individual has been singled out as the person responsible for the 2022 Medibank hack that compromised the information of more than 4 million Australians.“I can confirm that thanks to the hard work of the Australian Signals Directorate and the AFP, we have linked Russian citizen and cybercriminal Alexander Ermakov to the attack.
“The sanctions imposed are targeted financial sanctions and a travel ban. This will mean it’s a criminal offence, punishable with up to 10 years’ imprisonment, to provide assets to him, or to use or deal with his assets, including through cryptocurrency, or ransomware payments.
“This is the first time that Australia’s autonomous cyber-sanctions have been used.
Federal officials have said that Australia’s cyber sanction laws would now be used for the first time.
Wong, Marles and O’Neil claim that that sensitive information was stolen and published on the dark web in an “egregious violation”, impacting some of the most vulnerable members of the Australian community.
“Australia has used cyber sanctions powers for the very first time on a Russian individual for his role in the breach of the Medibank Private network,” Wong said.
The personal information of customers of the country’s largest health insurer were harvested in an event that caused anger among those affected for the response from the company.
The stolen data was from current and former customers and included names, addresses, birth dates, Medicare numbers, contact information and claims data from the private health insurer.
More to follow