Medibank shares take a dive after ransomware threat

The private health insurer’s shares are down 4.5 per cent to $3.35 in this morning’s trade after a ransomware attack on its IT network.

Despite Medibank’s release of a positive update on last week’s cyber security incident, the private health insurer’s share price has dipped.

While the good news is that Medibank doesn’t believe that any customer data has been stolen from its IT environment and regular operations have resumed as normal, the company will continue to investigate the incident as part of its ongoing forensic analysis.

Last week, Medibank revealed that it detected unusual activity on its network. In response, the company took immediate steps to contain the incident and engaged specialised cyber security firms.

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Medibank noted that as a health company providing health insurance and health services, the private insurer holds a range of necessary personal information of customers, according to a statement released by the company.

As a result, Medibank has deployed additional security measures across its network, strengthening the integrity of its systems, asserting that the protection of customers’ data security is its highest priority.

At this stage, Medibank’s investigation has indicated that its cyber security systems had detected activity consistent with the precursor to a ransomware event. This initial finding was shared with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), who provided Medibank with additional guidance in support of this conclusion.

Medibank’s systems were not encrypted by ransomware during this incident and there is no indication that the incident was caused by a state-based threat actor.