Latitude Financial to cover the cost of replacing 330,000 people’s stolen identification following cyber attack

Finance company Latitude Financial says it will cover the cost of replacing customers’ identification documents after more than 330,000 people had their privacy breached in a cyberattack.

Latitude Financial operates Genoapay, Gem Visa and Go Mastercard as well as 28° Global, Infinity credit cards, Latitude personal loans and vehicle loans.

On March 16 an attacker appeared to have stolen personal information that was held by two Latitude service providers, affecting customers across both Australia and New Zealand, the company said in an announcement to the Australian share market.

Latitude Financial Services chief executive Ahmed Fahour said because the attack remained active, it had taken its platforms offline and was unable to service customers or retailers.

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“We cannot restore this capability immediately, however we are working to do so gradually over the coming days and ask our customers for their continued patience.”

So far, Latitude could confirm approximately 330,000 customers and applicants had their personal information stolen.

Approximately 96% of the personal information stolen was copies of drivers’ licences or driver licence numbers, less than 4% was copies of passports or passport numbers and less than 1% was Medicare numbers.

“As our review deepens to include non-customer originating platforms and historical customer information, we are likely to uncover more stolen information affecting both current and past Latitude customers and applicants. We will provide a further update when we have more information to share.”

On Monday, four days after the attack began, it started contacting customers and applicants who had been affected to tell them what personal information had been stolen. Latitude said it was working with relevant agencies to replace identification documents, where necessary, at no cost to customers.

But Genoapay customer Terence Osmena, who had already paid $38 to replace his driver’s licence, said he’d had no communication from the company.

”I spent $38 replacing my driver’s licence, and still haven’t heard from anyone at Genoapay. I did this on my own to protect myself,” he said.

Osmena said the time it was taking for the company to get in touch with potentially affected customers was too long.

“They could have still told individuals without breaching any legal requirements from Genoapay. This also meant the window of opportunity where a crime could be committed was wider than it should have been.”

Latitude was still assessing the anticipated total cost to it of this incident, Fahour said.

The attack was being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.

Customers could also contact Equifax or Centrix to obtain a credit report to confirm if their identity had been used to obtain credit without their knowledge.