Medibank faces a class action in the Federal Court over the damaging cyber attack.Credit:Kara Lau
Medibank said the cost of the cyberattack topped $26 million for the December half year and is expected to be as much as $45 million for the full year. This only covers the costs of dealing directly with the incident and not the additional costs of the investor lawsuits and regulatory action.
The loss of customers in the December quarter partially offset the boom in Medibank’s international business,with the insurer adding more than 33,400 customers for the half year as international student,visitors and workers returned to Australia post-COVID.
However,Medibank boss David Koczkar said the business was slowly putting the cyberattack behind it.
“With more normal business operations resuming in January,early signs of improvement in policyholder trajectory gives us confidence in regaining our growth momentum in the resident business,” Koczkar said.
Medibank chief executive David Kockzar.Credit:Arsineh Houspian
“While our short-term focus is on regaining momentum in our core resident business,our strategy to grow as a health company has not changed,” he said.
Medibank on Thursday did not offer any update on the independent investigation of the cyberattack by Deloitte,but it did offer further details from its internal investigation into how a single attacker managed to access its entire customer base.