Oxfam Australia has confirmed that supporter facts was unlawfully accessed in a suspected cyber assault previously this calendar year.
The charity has been investigating the “data incident” since February following a databases belonging to it was leaked on the net.
The databases was alleged to have contained make contact with and donor facts for about one.7 million Oxfam Australia supporters, even though at the time this was unverified.
In an update on Monday, the charity explained it experienced found “supporter’s facts on just one of its databases was unlawfully accessed by an exterior occasion on twenty January 2021”.
“The databases incorporates facts about supporters who may perhaps have signed a petition, taken element in a campaign or made donations or buys by way of our previous shops,” it explained.
Oxfam explained that, for the vast majority of supporters, the databases contained names, addresses, dates of beginning, email addresses, cell phone numbers and genders.
It also contained donation histories “in some instinces” and added forms of facts “for a restricted group of supporters”, which Oxfam will make contact with supporters right about.
“There was a small group of supporters who may perhaps have experienced their lender name, account variety and BSB accessed, or element of their credit history and debit card facts accessed,” it explained.
“We are speaking to this group of supporters to offer advice on the unique measures that they can get to defend their facts and keep away from frauds.”
Getting alerted its supporters to the incident final month, Oxfam has now begun the system of “notifying all supporters about measures that they can get to defend their information”
It is also continuing to work with the Office environment of the Australian Information and facts Commissioner and Australian Cyber Security Centre.
CEO Lyn Morgain explained that Oxfam Australia would keep on to communicate “quickly and overtly with our supporters, when also complying with regulatory requirements”.
“We contacted all our supporters early final month to alert them to a suspected incident, which has now been confirmed,” she explained.
She included that the “privacy and safety of our supporters has been our paramount thing to consider through this system, which has concerned a complete and advanced investigation”.
“Oxfam supporters are at the coronary heart of our organisation and their self esteem is significant to our ongoing work in tackling the inequality that results in poverty close to the environment,” she explained.
“We sincerely regret this incident has transpired.”