Details of almost 1000 Medibank employees also included in hack

The insurer said it has received advice from experts that say the risk to the staff is low, but could result in highly targeted spam known as “spear fishing”.

“The files released by the criminal includes an excel spreadsheet of around 900 current and former employees – including their name, email address, their mobile phone numbers and the device information including the asset number and phone name (serial number and IMEI number),” a Medibank spokesperson said.

“While security experts have told us that the security risk is low, the information could be used for increased spam such as spear fishing.”

Medibank said they are taking a number of steps to protect the affected employees.

“A hacker will not be able to use the information to access people’s phone data or remotely hack into their phone. We’ve also taken steps through our telecommunications provider to block porting of phone numbers for Medibank devices,” the spokesperson said.

“We have offered our employees and former employees the option to change their mobile phone number at no cost to them.

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“We also have a dedicated on-call psychologist available.

“For employees who are customers they are able to access the same support as any other Medibank and ahm customer.”

In total, around 9.7 million current and former customers and associated representatives have had a raft of their personal details stolen, including names, date of births, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.

The heath giant is standing firm and refusing to pay the US$9.7 million demanded by the hackers.

A team of 100 officers from the ADF and Federal Police have formed a joint task force to help track down the hackers.