Origin Energy believes the information of approximately 900,000 current and former customers was accessed during a recent data security breach.
The energy provider confirmed it first became aware of a potential security threat in early July but initially did not believe it credible.
The company has urged customers to be vigilant to scams and said specialist identity and cyber support services were available to affected customers.
“We have now completed the initial phase of our review into Origin’s customer data security incident,” Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said in a statement.
“To our customers, I am sorry. We don’t take for granted the trust customers place in Origin and our safeguarding of their information.“
UNSW cybersecurity expert Richard Buckland described 900,000 people as “a lot of human suffering”, but said the situation could be much worse, given Origin has more than 4.7 million customers, as well as details of former and potential customers.
Professor Buckland noted that numbers of people reported to be affected often changes as incidents are investigated.
Customers whose information has been accessed will be contacted, Origin said, and customer support hours extended.
“We are working with cyber security and forensic specialists to ensure the incident is contained, and we’ve taken a number of steps to secure our system,” Mr Calabria said, confirming Origin was working with government and other agencies, and continuing its review into the incident.
Threat investigated since early July
Origin said it had been reviewing a “potential security threat” since early July.
“We worked to confirm its credibility and potential impact; however, based on the information available, it was not assessed to be credible,” the statement said.
“On 22 July, new information emerged that indicated a potential security incident may have occurred.
“We acted immediately, providing updates to the market and notifying our customers as a precaution.”
Professor Buckland described the situation as “quite strange”.
“It is surprising. What extra information would have been needed to take the threat from non-credible to credible?“
He said many companies have proactive “bug bounty” programs, that offer a dedicated path for people to report cyber vulnerabilities so they can be fixed proactively.
There is little information available about the source of the breach, but whether the incident ends up having originated from outside or inside Origin, Professor Buckland said he would classify it as a cyber attack.
“These days, attackers just take the easiest path. Insider threats are actually quite serious to businesses and we’ve seen a growing number of these”
Alleged hacker went to media
On Wednesday last week, The Australian news outlet first reported an alleged hacker had sent it a sample of 50 customer records containing names, addresses, emails, dates of birth, phone numbers and bill history.
The ABC later spoke to someone claiming to be behind the hack, who provided what they said was sample of data taken from a bigger customer list and internal screenshots of Origin computer systems.
The ABC has not been able to confirm with Origin that this data is legitimate.
Analysis of the sample showed it includes the real contact information that had not been publicly released in other major security breaches.
On Tuesday, Mr Calabria said it was a “criminal matter” that was now being investigated by the relevant authorities.
“Given this, we are constrained by the level of information we can provide about the incident at this time,” the chief executive said.
Shares in Origin Energy were down more than 1.1 per cent by 12:30pm AEST on Tuesday.
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