Australia’s Medibank reports cyber incident, shares on trading halt

Australian health insurer Medibank Private said it will isolate and remove access to some customer-facing systems as it detected unusual activity on its network.

The company said it took “immediate steps to contain the incident, and engaged specialised cybersecurity firms”, adding that there was no evidence that any sensitive data, including customer data, had been accessed at this stage.

The incident follows a breach late last month at Optus, Australia’s second-largest telecoms provider, which compromised data of up to 10 million customers and triggered an overhaul of consumer privacy rules to facilitate targeted data sharing between telecommunication firms and banks.