Australian Defence Department has been hit by an attack from a piece of malware that has encrypted files and demanded payment in return for the keys to unlock them, as part of what appears to be an ongoing campaign against government agencies worldwide, according to news reports. The ransomware — which in this case was WannaCry — locks access to computer systems and demands ransoms of around $500 worth of Bitcoin (about $5,500) be sent to specific accounts in order to restore the systems’ functionality.

200 gigabytes of Medibank data, which includes personal data and significant amounts of health claims data of all of its customers, all international student customers and all AHM customers, was accessed by the threat actors.

Following the news this morning that Medibank, Australia’s biggest health insurer has suffered a data breach, cybersecurity experts reacted below.

 Local government authorities have been forced to spend more than £12 million to recover from the cyber attack on Hackney Council that crippled the council’s internal systems in October 2020.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints revealed yesterday that it was the target of a cyber attack in March 2022 that led to the theft of personal data. The church, also known as the Mormon Church, said it had detected unauthorised activity on 23 March in certain computer systems that impacted the personal data of some of its members, employees, contractors, and friends.