March 27: According to Latitude Holdings (LFS.AX), a fintech company that offers digital payments and lending services, a large-scale data breach on March 16 resulted in the theft of 7.9 million driver licence numbers from Australia and New Zealand.
The company also said that about 53,000 passport numbers were stolen and less than 100 customers had a monthly financial statement stolen. Additionally, 6.1 million records dating back to at least 2005 were also stolen.
The Melbourne-based company said it will reimburse customers who choose to replace their stolen ID document. It also said it is fixing the platforms affected by the attack and has implemented additional security monitoring.
Latitude’s stock fell 2.5% to A$1.18. Since the company reported the incident on March 16, its shares have lost about 2.1%.
Matt Simpson, senior market analyst at City Index, said that investors tend to assume the worst when they hear of a “data breach”, but it seems that the market had already priced in the impact of the cyber attack two weeks ago.
He added that the current level does not make it a strong “buy”, but “investors clearly saw A$1 as a decent level for a punt.”
Latitude provides consumer finance services to major Australian retailers such as Harvey Norman (HVN.AX) and JB Hi-Fi (JBH.AX). It said last week that it had found more evidence of information theft.
Cyberattacks have become more frequent in Australia, and experts say this is due to a lack of cybersecurity professionals in the country.
Last year, several Australian companies reported data breaches, which prompted authorities to strengthen cybersecurity measures and implement stricter data-sharing rules.
Earlier this month, Latitude took its platform offline and said the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Cyber Security Centre were looking into the attack.