2026 Origin Energy — confirmed customer data breach; ~900,000 current/former customers

Verified company confirmation — impact updated July 28, 2026; investigation reporting updated August 18. Origin Energy Limited (one of Australia’s largest electricity and gas retailers) says the breach affects about 900,000 current and former customers. Impacted data may include names, dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, account information, and partial payment card or bank account numbers. Origin’s July update states it had been investigating a potential security threat since early July; initially available information suggested the threat was not credible, and new information on July 22 confirmed the intrusion. An individual claiming responsibility alleged ~2 million customers and a private settlement — Origin has not confirmed any settlement, and the 2M figure remains an unverified actor claim. On 17–18 August, ABC News and the AFR reported the investigation focusing on a former Accenture employee in Manila, where Accenture ran Origin billing and customer-support functions; AFR sources said the person intended to extort Origin and may have copied data to a laptop after leaving. ABC: Accenture confirmed details of that report but would not comment further; Origin declined comment, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. AFP said it is working with Origin; AFR reported ACSC is not involved because the matter was deemed an employee issue. Origin and Accenture had not published a matching official root-cause statement at indexing. recordsAffected remains the company-attested ~900,000.