It’s the gift that keeps on giving, according to Victoria Police.
Victoria Police has linked over 11,000 “cybercrime incidents” to the 2022 Medibank data breach.
In a submission to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into the capability of law enforcement to respond to cybercrime, VicPol cited the Medibank breach, which affected 9.7 million customers, as one two incidents which caused digital harms to almost a million Victorians.
“Identity theft and compromises to data, including through unauthorised access and leaks, changes and deletion, are commonplace digital harms affecting Victorians,” the submission read.
“In 2020, the World Economic Forum identified cyberattacks, together with data fraud or theft, as two of the top 10 global risks facing the world today.
“Recent attacks illustrate the severity. The Optus and Medibank Private data breaches impacted over 942,000 Victorians, many of whom continue to turn to Victoria Police for advice and support as they are at risk of identity crime.
“Operation Guardian has so far linked over 11,000 cybercrime incidents to the Medibank data breach.”
Operation Guardian brings together federal, state and territory police and other organisations to “identify, disrupt, charge and prosecute any person seeking to exploit personally identifiable information obtained from [a] data breach”.
It was originally set up to monitor misuse of data from the 2022 Optus breach, but was expanded to include the Medibank, MyDeal, Latitude Financial and GoAnywhere incidents.
