Meriton, a prominent property developer and construction company in Australia, has announced that it suffered a significant data breach in January 2023, which may have compromised the personal information of its staff and guests.
The company has notified approximately 1,900 individuals who may have had their data exposed, with financial, health, and employment information of its staff potentially breached, while guest contact information may have also been exposed. The data breach compromised 35.6 gigabytes of data.
Meriton has alerted the Australian Cyber Security Centre and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, stating that it has been taking steps to protect against future risks to data and prevent recurrence.
The recent data breaches involving Meriton, Latitude Financial, and The Good Guys have raised concerns about the security of third-party suppliers and vendors.
These incidents show that data is often duplicated and shared with multiple parties, making it challenging to protect against cyber threats.
Experts have suggested that organizations need to have policies in place to prevent third parties from retaining data after their services are no longer used, and they should only provide employees and third parties with access to data that is necessary for their role.
Supply chain attacks, such as those affecting Meriton, Latitude Financial, and The Good Guys, can lead to the spread of malicious software through networks of clients and end-users, making it more difficult to detect and contain cyber threats. In these recent attacks, the focus appears to be on personal information that can be sold or leveraged for fraud.
According to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, in the second half of 2022, there was a 26% increase in cybersecurity incidents compared to the previous half.
Organizations are urged to take proactive measures to protect against and respond to cyber threats by collecting only the minimum amount of personal information required and deleting it when it is no longer needed.
