Data Breach Confirmed After Australian Energy Giant Origin Is Hacked
Australia’s Origin Energy Limited has confirmed suffering a data breach, and a hacker claims to have accessed the records of millions of customers.
Headquartered in Sydney, Origin Energy is one of Australia’s largest electricity and gas retailers while also engaging in power generation, natural gas exploration and production, and renewable energy initiatives.
On July 22, the company said it had launched an investigation into a potential cybersecurity incident involving access to customer information.
In an update shared on July 23, the company confirmed that there had been unauthorized access to “some customers’ data”, but it had still been working on determining how many individuals are affected.
Origin said the attacker may have obtained names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, account information, and partial payment card or bank account numbers.
Impacted customers are being contacted. Origin has engaged external cybersecurity experts to assist with the investigation and has notified Australian law enforcement, cybersecurity, and privacy agencies.
The energy giant has not mentioned anything about the incident impacting production and critical operations.
Australia’s 7News has been contacted by an individual claiming to be behind the attack. The alleged hacker said the information of 2 million individuals was stolen and suggested that it would all be leaked unless Origin pays a ransom.
Origin Energy has roughly 4.8 million customers.
Contacted by SecurityWeek, an Origin spokesperson said, “Origin notes there is considerable media speculation in relation to the data security incident we are actively managing,” adding, “Our investigation is ongoing, and we currently have no further updates.”
*updated with statement from Origin
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