Australian firm Latitude Financial Services refuses to pay Ransomware Demand

Australian based financial services company Latitude Financial Services has announced its refusal to pay the ransom demanded by the cyber criminals responsible for the recent attack on the company’s systems. This decision comes in the aftermath of one of Australia’s largest data breaches, which effected nearly 14 million Australian and New Zealand drivers’ license numbers. Latitude’s stance aligns with the Australian Government’s policy of not paying ransom demands to cyber criminals, believing that doing so would be detrimental to customers and could encourage further cyber attacks.

The Australian Federal Police are currently investigating the attack, and Latitude is collaborating with cyber security experts in the region to ensure the safety of their customers’ data. Despite the severity of the breach, Latitude remains confident that they will soon restore regular business operations, likely though backups that the business had of their company data. The company’s primary customer contact centre is already back online and operating at full capacity.

Latitude CEO Bob Delan shared in a statement to the ASX (Australian Securities Exchange), “Our priority remains on contacting every customer whose personal information was compromised and supporting them through this process.” Delan apologised for the distress caused by the cyber attack and expressed hope in regaining customer trust. In the meantime, Latitude’s teams are working on safely restoring IT systems, bringing staffing levels back to full capacity, enhancing security protections, and returning to normal operations.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil revealed that recent cyber attacks on Optus, Medibank, and Latitude Financial were just the beginning. The government is ensuring they have the security tools and processes in place to protect against more significant breaches that could potentially disrupt critical infrastructure assets like water supply and electricity grid. To address this, O’Neil is proposing a series of ‘war-gaming exercises’ to assess the cyber readiness of some of these services, as well as banks and financial institutions. These exercises will evaluate their ability to respond to attacks that could potentially impact the lives of millions of Australians.

Here at One2Call we work with businesses to ensure that they have the Highest Level of Cyber Security to protect you from the ever evolving Cyber Security threats. Our Endpoint Detection & Response solution actively protects your business from evolving Cyber Security threats, including Ransomware attacks, before anti-virus can even register them. EDR does this by using artificial intelligence to proactively monitor your endpoints and protect them from unusual activity and malicious attacks on your business. If you would like to find out more about how One2Call can protect your business from Ransomware attacks, including having a comprehensive 3, 2, 1 Backup Solution in place, reach out to us to find out more.

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