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Speaker 1: There is a concern I think right around the nation,

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Speaker 1: but particularly if you are a Medibank customer. So a

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Speaker 1: major cybersecurity incident occurred at Medibank Private, just weeks after

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Speaker 1: one third of Australians had their information held to ransom

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Speaker 1: in the OPTAs Starter breach. Now, as one of Australia's

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Speaker 1: biggest health insurance providers, Medibank holds information that includes intimate

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Speaker 1: medical records, making that breach well, I guess even more

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Speaker 1: serious than the Optus hack in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: Now joining me on the line to give us some

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Speaker 1: detail about really how we can protect ourselves and our

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Speaker 1: rights is the Northern Territories Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs,

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Speaker 1: Rebecca Davy. Good morning to you, Rebecca. Let me try

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Speaker 1: that again. Good morning again, Rebecca.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Katie. How are you?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, very well, sorry, bit of a technical issue, operator error,

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Speaker 1: I think you call those ones idea No all good now, Rebecca.

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Speaker 1: How concerning is this latest situation with Medibank?

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Speaker 2: Of course, I think any incident where people's personal information

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Speaker 2: has been stolen and is now in the hands of

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Speaker 2: criminals is very concerning. I think, just off the back

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Speaker 2: of the Optus incident. This one that looks like at

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Speaker 2: the moment anyway, it's not quite as big as the

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Speaker 2: optus problem. Yeah, and hopefully a lot less people have

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Speaker 2: been affected, but it's still very concerning if you're one

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Speaker 2: of those people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would suspect that pretty concerning as well,

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Speaker 1: given the fact that it, you know, this breach does

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Speaker 1: contain health information.

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Speaker 2: That's right. You know, a person's medical information is very private,

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Speaker 2: and I think most people will be very concerned about

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Speaker 2: their medical information being in the hands of criminal Yeah,

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Speaker 2: not just you know, on top of that, your identity,

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Speaker 2: you know, detailed being stolen, which could be used for

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Speaker 2: financial crimes as well. So both those things would leave

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Speaker 2: you feeling very vulnerable.

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Speaker 1: And Rebecca, is this something that that NT Consumer Affairs

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Speaker 1: have been contacted about by territorians.

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Speaker 2: Not really, we're not the first point of call, although

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Speaker 2: we can certainly take enquiries and we can refer you

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Speaker 2: to the to the right place.

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Speaker 1: What are the options for territory instead of listening this

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Speaker 1: morning who've maybe been contacted by medibank and they're not

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Speaker 1: really sure what to do or not really sure if

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Speaker 1: their data has been breached or exactly what's going on.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe Bank released the statement last Thursday saying

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Speaker 2: that they will be contacting anyone that have been affected

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Speaker 2: by this. So hopefully if you have been you should

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Speaker 2: have been contacted by any bank. Although the investigation is ongoing,

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Speaker 2: the Australian Federal College and Hour involved, so it is

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Speaker 2: an evolving investigation and certainly if you have any concerns

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Speaker 2: at all, I would first be making contact with Medibank

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Speaker 2: and getting some information about whether any of your data

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Speaker 2: has been stolen. Some other advice we would give to

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Speaker 2: people is to think about and be very vigilant now

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Speaker 2: about any online scams, particularly those referencing Medibank Private or

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Speaker 2: any unusual emails or text messages you might get.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good points. Do you know if

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Speaker 1: there have sort of been any reports of that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing happening as yet.

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Speaker 2: I'm not aware of any as yet, but going on

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Speaker 2: what happened with Optus, within a few days, people were

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Speaker 2: getting text messages referencing the Optus incident, and so I

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Speaker 2: would be very wary of that. Will never contact you

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Speaker 2: via text message, So if you're getting anything suspicious email,

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Speaker 2: text message, I would just ignore it. I think the

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Speaker 2: next best thing that anyone can do is hop onto

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Speaker 2: the Australian Cyber Security Center website. They have some really

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Speaker 2: good resources on there. In particular, they have one called

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Speaker 2: have You Been Hacked. It's a tool that will guide

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Speaker 2: you through a series of scenarios trying to help you

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Speaker 2: assess if you have been hacked, and it'll give you

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Speaker 2: advice about what to do next if any of those

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Speaker 2: scenarios might apply to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I guess it's quite frightening for a

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Speaker 1: lot of Territorians, a lot of Assies more generally, not

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Speaker 1: just in terms of Medibank, but also in terms of

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Speaker 1: what had happened with Optus. And you know, you sort

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Speaker 1: of you give your details over to certain organizations and

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Speaker 1: you never expect that you're going to wind up in

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Speaker 1: this situation.

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Speaker 2: No, not at all. I mean I myself was caught

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Speaker 2: up in the Optus one and it at leads you're

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Speaker 2: feeling very worried, and you suddenly think about all the

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Speaker 2: different ways you give your personal information out and certainly

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Speaker 2: when you do that, we often don't think about the

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Speaker 2: potential risk of that. So I probably just advise people

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Speaker 2: to to be a little bit more aware of who

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Speaker 2: you're giving your information to and if there really a

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Speaker 2: need for them to have that information as well. I

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Speaker 2: think there's mounting pressure on businesses, especially large corporations, to

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Speaker 2: do more to protect personal information as a hold, yep,

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Speaker 2: and you know, we have a right to expect that

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Speaker 2: it will be protected.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you spot on, And you know, like we not

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Speaker 1: only sort of give our information over for various different things,

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Speaker 1: but you're so right that we expect that it's going

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Speaker 1: to be protected, and it's really concerning for people then

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Speaker 1: when that private information is yeah, is breached.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very concerning, And I think it's something that the

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Speaker 2: federal goal and it's taken quite seriously. They recently advised

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Speaker 2: of a couple of different legislative changes that they're proposing,

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Speaker 2: you know, really as a result of what happened with

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Speaker 2: Optis and now Medibank. They're introducing a bill to increase

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Speaker 2: the maximum penalties under the Privacy Act for breaches of

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Speaker 2: serious or repeated privacy breaches. At the moment, the current

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Speaker 2: penalty is only two point two million dollars, which you

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Speaker 2: can imagine to a large corporation like OPTAs is not

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Speaker 2: much of a deterrent to be putting resources into protecting information.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is so very true. And Rebecca, obviously you've

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Speaker 1: touched on OPTAs, so we've also touched on manibank. Have

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Speaker 1: there been many territori ins sort of contacting you since

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Speaker 1: that last OPTUS breach? I know that you said anti

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Speaker 1: consumer affairs probably isn't the first point of call for

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Speaker 1: a lot of people. But has there been much, you know,

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Speaker 1: much of an increase in those calls coming to consumer affairs.

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Speaker 2: No, we haven't really received too many at all. I

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Speaker 2: think there's what I will say is that there has

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Speaker 2: been a lot of information put out there about what

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Speaker 2: to do in terms of contacting IT office or medibank,

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Speaker 2: hopping onto the Australian Cybersecurity Center, securing a devices, enabling

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Speaker 2: that multi factor authentication. So there's a lot of information

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Speaker 2: out there for consumers to access and by any means,

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Speaker 2: if you're a little overwhelmed with all that information out there,

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Speaker 2: it can be quite overwhelming. There's a number of agencies

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Speaker 2: that you can go to for various different things, but

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Speaker 2: if you have any questions, please call us and we

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Speaker 2: can refer you to the right to the right agency

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Speaker 2: for your situation.

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Speaker 1: Well INT Deputy Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, Rebecca Davey. We

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Speaker 1: really appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for having a

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Speaker 1: chat with us.

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Speaker 2: Not a problem. Thank you for having me Katie, thank

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Speaker 2: you