Latitude Financial, which is engaged in financial services, said on Friday that losses for the first half of this year will be from 95 to 105 million Australian dollars. The company also expects that at the end of the year it will also inform investors about losses. And all because of the March cyber attack, as a result of which the hackers managed to abduct millions of records of the company’s clients.
March 16, Latitude reported that she discovered “unusual activity in her systems, which is similar to advanced malicious cyberataka.” The attacker used the accounting data of the company’s employees to steal information with two of its service providers. One of the suppliers stole about 103 thousand documents for identification, mainly a driver’s license, and the other had about 225 thousand customers’ records.
In the following days, the situation only worsened: the company said that passport numbers and Medicare program numbers were also stolen. In addition, about eight million driver rights and more than six million historical records of clients since 2005 were stolen.
The company received a ransom requirement, but refused to pay it. 5 weeks after the initial compromise, the company’s regular commercial operations are fully restored, and there is no more suspicious activity in internal systems.
As a result of cyber attacks, the company lost predicted income and suffered large credit losses, and the percentage of overdue payments increased from less than 80 basic points to more than 100.
In addition, the company will make a reserve worth about $ 46 million to cover the costs associated with the incident. These expenses include possible recovery costs, but not potential fines, collective claims, modernization of systems or insurance payments. In other words, expenses may be much higher.
Latitude expects that by the end of June it will have a debt in the amount of 6.1 to 6.3 billion dollars. The company also said that the board is unlikely to announce the payment of dividends this year.