On Thursday, hackers threatened to leak the stolen health data of 1,000 famous Australians in a cybersecurity incident described by the government as a "huge wake-up call."

In a statement to the Australian stock market Medibank, one of the country's largest health insurers  said: "The criminal has provided a sample of records for 100 policies”, adding that close to 200 gigabytes of data were stolen.

"This claims data include the location of where a customer received medical services, and codes relating to their diagnosis and procedures," it added.

The insurer announced, on Wednesday, a halt on trading as details of the hack became public.

Unless Medibank paid a ransom, the hackers threatened to leak or sell the data, beginning with 1,000 high-profile Australians.

Last month, a hack targeting telecoms company Optus exposed the personal information of nearly nine million Australians – nearly a third of the population.

The Optus hack was one of the largest data breaches in Australian history.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said Thursday that cybersecurity could no longer be taken for granted.

"Combined with Optus, this is a huge wake-up call for the country," she said as quoted by ABC Radio. 

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