Federal government slaps targeted sanctions on Russian cybercriminal behind 2022 Medibank Private cyber attack

The Australian government announced autonomous cyber sanctions against Russian citizen Aleksandr Ermakov for his alleged role in the 2022 Medibank Private breach, a major incident that exposed personal data for more than four million Australians (9.7 million records). Authorities linked Ermakov to the attack after an 18-month investigation and characterized the incident as one of the country's most damaging cybercrimes; the sanctions target the individual and not the reportedly disbanded REvil group.