Sanction imposed on Russian citizen in Australia for stealing data from health insurance company

A Russian citizen, who was held responsible for stealing data from the country’s largest health insurance company in Australia, was placed on the sanctions list.

According to ABC broadcaster, the Australian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that a Russian citizen named “Aleksandr Ermakov” was responsible for the theft of data covering 9.7 million people of the insurance company “Medibank” in Australia at the end of 2022 and that sanctions would be imposed on this person.

It was reported that Ermakov, who is stated to be a member of the Russian hacker group called “REvil”, was involved in many data breaches in Europe, the USA and the UK.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said in a statement on the subject: “The hacking of Medibank was the most devastating hacking incident we have experienced as a country.” he said.

Medibank, Australia’s largest health insurance company, claimed that criminals demanded a ransom of $9.5 million for the stolen data of approximately 10 million people. The company announced that it would not pay ransom to get the information back.

Hackers, who stole the information of thousands of patients who were treated for HIV, alcohol and drug addiction and had abortions, uploaded the treatment information of these people to the dark web as of November 9, 2022.

Medibank CEO David Koczkar also said that he offered support to his customers whose information was stolen.

Hackers’ release of personal medical information has been described as “one of the worst recent cyber crimes in Australia”.