Guardian Childcare, one of the largest childcare providers in Victoria, has suffered a cyberattack, affecting potentially thousands of families.
The company informed its patrons that its IT systems had been breached, leading to the theft of identification documents.
“Following an extensive investigation of the incident, we have become aware that a scanned image of the ID document you provided at the time of your visit may have been compromised by the attacker,” an email from the childcare provider read, as reported by 9News.
The company’s investigation suggests no other data was compromised.
Guardian Childcare, which operates approximately 60 centres across Victoria, has thousands of customers. The incident has been reported to authorities, and steps have been taken to enhance the security of their IT systems.
Guardian recommended that affected families contact the authority that issued their identification to request a replacement and remain vigilant for potential scam activities.
Australia is grappling with a significant increase in data breaches, with 1.8 million user accounts compromised during the first quarter of 2024 (Q1 2024), according to cybersecurity firm Surfshark’s report.
The analysis, which focuses on email addresses linked to online services, found that these breaches also involved sensitive data such as passwords and financial information.
It indicated a 388% rise in compromised user accounts compared to the last quarter of 2023. This increase places Australia as the 15th most affected country worldwide, with approximately 140 million accounts compromised since 2004.
In addition to Guardian Childcare, many companies have fallen victim to cyberattacks of late.
Major oil and gas company Shell fell victim to a cybercrime, with a threat actor claiming to have posted 80,000 rows of customer data, affecting individuals across the globe, including Australia.
Meanwhile, a hacker group claimed that it has stolen the personal data of ticket sales giant Ticketmaster’s global customers, with thousands of Australians expected to have been impacted.
Other companies that reported data breaches in May included electronic prescription provider MediSecure, tech firm Iress, and mortgage lender Firstmac.
