On March 16, Latitude Holdings, a digital payments and lending company based in Melbourne, Australia, experienced a large-scale information theft that resulted in the theft of almost 8 million driver’s license numbers from Australia and New Zealand. Additionally, roughly 53,000 passport numbers and less than 100 monthly financial statements belonging to customers were stolen. The company also reported that around 6.1 million records dating back to at least 2005 were stolen.
CEO Ahmed Fahour announced that the firm is rectifying the platforms affected in the attack and has implemented additional security monitoring. Customers who have had their ID documents stolen will be reimbursed if they choose to replace them. Latitude’s stock dropped by 2.5% to 1.18 Australian dollars (approximately $0.78) following the incident’s disclosure on March 16.
Senior Market Analyst Matt Simpson at City Index believes that many investors already priced in the doom and gloom of the cyberattack when the news first broke, stating that “investors clearly saw 1 Australian dollar as a decent level for a punt.” However, he does not consider the current level to be a strong buy.
Experts believe that Australia’s understaffed cybersecurity industry is the reason behind the increasing number of cyberattacks on Australian firms. Last year, some of the largest companies in the country reported data breaches, prompting authorities to increase efforts to strengthen cybersecurity and implement stricter data-sharing rules to prevent breaches in the future.
Latitude took its platform offline earlier this month and reported that the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Cyber Security Centre are investigating the attack
