Coles credit customers swept up in Latitude hack

Historical Coles Credit Card holder data has been affected by a recent cyber attack on Latitude Financial’s (ASX: LFS) systems, however it remains unclear as to the number of impacted customers or specific details of the breach.

Latitude - a former service provider for Coles Financial Services - was hit with the cyber attack one month ago and in March revealed that close to 8 million drivers licence numbers were stolen during the hack.

According to Coles, the company changed service providers to Citibank in March 2018 - implying that only Coles Credit customers prior to that date were swept up in the cybercrime at Latitude.

“We are disappointed that this cyber incident has taken place and apologise for the inconvenience and uncertainty created,” Coles said.

The update comes after Latitude announced last week that it refused to pay a ransom demand issued by the criminals behind the recent attack on its systems which saw around 14 million personal documents stolen in total - far worse than initially believed.

In a statement, the personal finance firm said that paying the ransom would not only be detrimental to customers, but would cause harm by encouraging further criminal attacks - a position supported by Australian Government advice on cyber crime ransom requests.

The company now says its regular business operations are in the process of being restored, with its primary customer contact centre back online and operating at full capacity.

The matter remains under investigation by authorities, and the company says it is in the process of contacting all current and former customers and applicants whose information was compromised by the hack.

Further, Latitude confirmed that no suspicious activity had been recorded in its systems since the initial 16 March event.

The news also follows the launch of an investigation into a potential class action lawsuit by law firms Gordon Legal and Hayden Stephens and Associates, which teamed up to represent the millions of people affected by the hack.

Shares in LFS closed at $1.28 per share on Friday 14 April, 3.66 per cent higher than Monday 10 April’s opening price of $1.23 per share.