Australian Supermarket Giant Coles Confirms Leakage of Financial Data to Latitude Financial
In a recent incident, Coles, the Australian giant of supermarkets, confirmed the leakage of financial data related to cyberattacks to Latitude Financial. The incident resulted in the theft of personal information used to release credit cards under the Coles brand by a cybercrime group, according to a report by the Australian Television and Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
In March, Latitude Financial informed the Australian Stock Exchange about the cyberattack, which impacted 330,000 customer records. On March 27, the company confirmed that criminals had stolen 14 million customers’ records, most of which date back to 2005. Amongst the stolen information were driver’s rights, names, addresses, and dates of birth, as well as thousands of passport numbers.
Latitude Financial was previously part of GE Money, which issued credit cards under the Coles and Myer brands. Later, GE Money sold its financial business in Australia to a consortium, which created Latitude Financial. In a statement on April 14, Coles confirmed that the violation impacted the credit card offers, but did not report how many customers were affected.
The representative of Latitude Financial also confirmed the data leakage of the owners of Coles credit cards and said that the company is in the process of establishing contact with affected clients. “We are disappointed that the cyberattack has occurred, and we apologize for the inconvenience and uncertainty,” said the representative of Coles.
It is worth noting that Coles transferred its financial services to Citibank, owned by NAB in 2018.