{"id":818682,"date":"2026-07-23T12:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818682\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T12:29:18","slug":"personal-and-banking-details-among-customer-data-stolen-in-origin-energy-hack-hacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818682\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal and banking details among customer data stolen in Origin Energy hack | Hacking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Origin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/energy-australia\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Energy<\/a> customers\u2019 addresses, phone numbers and partial bank account data have been accessed in a hack, the company has confirmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The firm has 4.8m customer accounts in Australia, providing electricity, fossil gas, LPG and internet services to homes and businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Origin has yet to confirm which, and how many, customers had been affected. In a statement to the ASX on Thursday, it said it would tell customers once it confirmed whether they had been affected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">A person claiming to be the hacker has reportedly contacted media outlets with unverified claims that 2 million customers\u2019 details were accessed.<\/p>\n<p><a data-link-name=\"standard link button Primary\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed&amp;CMP=emailbutton\" class=\"dcr-rh233e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Origin said data may include customers\u2019 names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and Origin account information, as well as the last four digits of a credit card, or the last three digits of a bank account.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The company said incomplete credit card or bank account information could not be used to make purchases or access accounts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/live\/2026\/jul\/22\/australia-news-live-penny-wong-asean-pacific-missile-pauline-hanson-one-nation-labor-conference-tax-anthony-albanese-antisemitism-royal-commission-ntwnfb?page=with%3Ablock-6a603a1c8f088134984c9b79#block-6a603a1c8f088134984c9b79\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Origin first revealed the hack in a statement yesterday<\/a>, saying it believed credit card or bank details had not been accessed. The company has not detailed how the hack occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Origin\u2019s chief executive, Frank Calabria, said the company was securing its systems and ensuring there was no further unauthorised access, working with independent cyber experts and authorities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry this has happened,\u201d Calabria said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cCustomers trust Origin with their information, and I apologise for the impact this may cause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Experts have warned customers could be vulnerable if the data is leaked and used for identity theft, or by scammers tricking people into believing they are representatives of real businesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Rumpa Dasgupta, a lecturer in cybersecurity at La Trobe University, said personalised records could be misused for physical robberies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">\u201cIn the wrong hands, this information could be exploited not only for highly targeted phishing campaigns but also to support physical crimes such as burglary by identifying vulnerable properties,\u201d Dasgupta said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Origin said the Australian Cyber Security Centre, the Australian federal police and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OIAC) were all investigating.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-15\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-vf9hps\">Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1r7my33\">Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2998.jpg\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"dcr-xiq31o\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-15\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-76akua\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The National Office of Cyber Security is leading the government\u2019s response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The AFP declined to comment on whether it had identified or communicated with Origin\u2019s hackers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The Australian reported it was first contacted by a person claiming to have hacked Origin on Tuesday, after which the newspaper alerted Origin, which made a statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">An Origin spokesperson said the company had moved immediately to update the ASX as soon as it was aware of a potential incident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oaic.gov.au\/news\/media-centre\/data-breach-notifications-increase-to-all-time-high-in-2025,-new-ndb-stats-show\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The OIAC reported<\/a> it received 1,205 data breach notifications in 2025, of which 716 were related to malicious or criminal activity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Among the hacks was a leak of 5 million Qantas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2025\/oct\/13\/qantas-hack-leak-customer-data-dark-web-what-you-need-to-know\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">customers\u2019 information<\/a> in October, which prompted warnings scammers could cold call leaked phone numbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The federal privacy commissioner last week found Qantas did not make any omissions or failings in breach of the Privacy Act, in relation to the hack. The Australian federal police are investigating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Origin Energy customers\u2019 addresses, phone numbers and partial bank account data have been accessed in a hack, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-818682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}