'Even more worrying is the danger of extortion that our people's medical records - often containing sensitive information that is quite personal and would cause a lot of stress to some people to have revealed - that information now is possibly all going to be publicly revealed,' Professor Buckland said. Richard Buckland from the University of New South Wales told ABC News the hackers might now be in possession of very sensitive information.

Calls for legislation to protect dataĬybersecurity experts say the Medibank breach is even worse than the one that hit Optus, given the medical information involved. Medibank has initiated a dedicated cybercrime customer support package to respond to the breach and is urging anyone that has been affected to contact them. It is compulsory for all international students to purchase overseas student health cover (OSHC) to meet their visa conditions. Many current and former customers, including international student customers, have told the ABC they are concerned about safety issues, their parents overseas, and being targeted by scammers. Laws, such as Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW), Health Records Act 2001 (VIC) and Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 (ACT), require the company to keep the health information of adults for at least seven years and for individuals younger than 18 until that individual is at least 25 years old. Medibank said it was required by law to hold onto past customers' data, which was why former clients could be caught out by this breach. The hack impacts about 4 million current customers along with an unknown number of former customers too.

Medibank private contact information