I’m not sure if any of the stories of Australian companies getting hacked have made it to the U.S.

Optus is the second largest telco in Australia. I have my mobile plans and internet plans with them. They got hacked about six weeks ago and I’ve been told my details got swiped.

Then I was told the information that got swiped is not enough for any person to steal my identity so I don’t need to do anything.

Then VINOMOFO got hacked, an online site i buy wine from. It was a test database that had all the information of their customers. And I’ve heard nothing from them since.

Then the big one.

Medibank.

Yep, the private medical insurer got hacked and all of their customer data, past and present members was taken along with medical histories. At the moment I’m a current member.

I would like to say “sucked in” to Medibank. About six weeks before the hack they wouldn’t allow me to get a report on how much dollars my 17 year old son had left on his physiotherapy.

Their response was “due to privacy and because he is over the age of 16, he needs to access this information himself”. And they kept re-iterating that they take “privacy seriously”.

But, I’m the one paying the insurance premiums, plus the gap payments and he’s under my policy but they told me I have no rights to ask questions about him.

Where is the privacy now?

The privacy they take so seriously.

The hackers then asked Medibank to pay $1USD for each member record which totaled about $9.2 million.

Medibank refused.

The data started to get released.

Then the text messages started.

Hi Dad, I lost my phone and I’m using this phone. Call me on this number?

And then the phone calls started from mobile numbers which are not masked so when I answered them I was greeted by silence and then they would hang up.

I’m pretty sure the text messages and phone calls are from previous hacks as the Medibank hack is too recent.

Police enforcement doesn’t care because the hackers are not in Australia and while the politicians say they are doing something about it, they actually do nothing except talk about it and try to get voting points.

Once upon a time I felt like hackers kept governments, companies and politicians honest, by leaking information which showed these institutions abusing their power. But leaking information from innocent citizens for profit is not cool.