Data Breaches Origin Energy Data Breach Affects 900,000 Australians The hacker claimed to have stolen the information of 2 million Origin Energy customers after breaching its systems. By Eduard Kovacs | July 28, 2026 (1:01 AM ET) Flipboard Reddit Whatsapp Whatsapp Email Australian power company Origin Energy Limited said the recent data breach affects 900,000 current and former customers. Origin Energy, which has roughly 4.8 million customers, is one of Australia’s largest electricity and gas retailers. The company recently started investigating a cybersecurity incident and determined that threat actors gained access to customer data, including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, account information, and partial payment card or bank account numbers. In an update shared on Tuesday, Origin revealed that it had been investigating a “potential security threat” since early July, but the initially available information suggested the threat was not credible. New information that came to light on July 22 confirmed the intrusion. An individual claiming to be behind the Origin hack said that information from 2 million customers had been obtained and suggested it would all be leaked if the company refused to pay a ransom. However, the alleged hacker later told The Australian [paywalled] that an agreement had been reached with Origin and no data would be released. Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading. Origin Energy has not mentioned anything about reaching an agreement with the attacker. In fact, the company’s CEO, Frank Calabria, stated, “Importantly, this is a criminal matter that is subject to an ongoing investigation by the relevant authorities, and given this, we are constrained by the level of information we can provide about the incident at this time.” Even if the stolen data is not made public, Origin admitted that other threat actors could leverage the incident for scams. Related : Coca-Cola Confirms Data Breach After Fairlife Ransomware Attack Related : DentaQuest Data Breach Potentially Impacts Over 23 Million People Related : MCBS Data Breach Affects 1.2 Million Individuals Written By Eduard Kovacs Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering. Daily Briefing Newsletter Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing for the latest cybersecurity threats, trends, and expert insights. More from Eduard Kovacs Anthropic’s Opus 5 Nears Mythos 5 on Finding Bugs, but Falls Short on Exploits MCBS Data Breach Affects 1.2 Million Individuals Rockwell Patches Code Execution Flaws in Arena Simulation Software Data Breach Confirmed After Australian Energy Giant Origin Is Hacked Chick-fil-A Accounts Get Fried in Credential Stuffing Attack Nuclear-Sabotage Malware Benchmark Trips Up Most Frontier AI Models Upbound Group Says Data Breach Led to $13 Million in Fraudulent Contract Losses New Check Point Zero-Day Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild Latest News For Some, So-Called ‘Skynet Day’ Came too Close to Sci-Fi After a Rogue Agent Hacked Into a Startup New GitHub, PyPI Policies Boost Supply Chain Security PTC Windchill Vulnerability Exploited in Ransomware Campaign MedusaHVNC Malware Uses Hidden Windows Desktops to Evade Detection Nvidia and Tech Giants Launch AI Security Alliance Coca-Cola Confirms Data Breach After Fairlife Ransomware Attack Beelzebub Raises $3.4 Million for Hacker-Trapping Platform What’s Hiding in Your Mobile Apps? Lookout MSEC Aims to Find Out Trending Daily Briefing Newsletter Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts. Webinar: Closing the Exploitation Gap July 22, 2026 Join this live webinar as we explore why exploitation is outpacing remediation, where risk is growing fastest, and what security leaders can do to close the gap before attackers take advantage. Register Virtual Event: CodeSecCon 2026 August 19, 2026 CodeSecCon bridges the gap between dev and security. Discover best practices for secure coding, innovative risk-reduction tools, and safe AI integration to cultivate a true DevSecOps culture. Safely secure your apps! Register People on the Move Barry Childe has joined data sciences tech company Datavault AI as Chief Information Security Officer. John DeSimone, the former CEO of Nightwing, has been named Chief Operating Officer at Everfox. Sectigo has appointed Prem Hareesh as Corporate Chief Technology Officer. More People On The Move Expert Insights Is Patching Dead? Vulnerability Management in the Post-Mythos Era You cannot out-patch a machine that writes a working exploit from a vulnerability description in twenty hours. Stop trying to optimize a game you cannot win. (Danelle Au) When Identity Verification Fails: Lessons from a Real-World SIM Swap and Near Account Takeover Identity confidence changes throughout every interaction and should be reassessed continuously as new risk signals emerge. (Torsten George) Legacy Systems, Real-World Impacts: The Reality of OT Security Legacy systems, safety concerns, and critical infrastructure risks make OT vulnerability disclosure one of cybersecurity's most challenging balancing acts. (Tod Beardsley) The Shift Toward Business-Aligned Risk Management Moving from isolated, technical data to a continuous risk lifecycle can help organizations align security controls with actual business consequences. (Steve Durbin) How to Conduct a Successful Audit of AI-Driven Software Development As AI-generated code becomes commonplace, CISOs need new audit strategies to measure developer practices, govern AI tool usage, and identify software risks before they reach production. (Matias Madou) Flipboard Reddit Whatsapp Whatsapp Email