CTARS data breach

Breach date: 2021-05-21. Added to this index: 2022-05-31. Accounts affected: about 12K. Domain: ctars.com.au.

What happened

In May 2022, the client management system for the Australian government's NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) suffered a data breach which was subsequently posted to an online hacking forum. The CTARS cloud platform is used by care providers to record information about NDIS participants and often contains sensitive medical information. Impacted data includes over 12k unique email addresses, physical addresses, names, dates of birth, phone numbers and data related to patient conditions and treatments.

Breach data sourced from Have I Been Pwned, used under CC BY 4.0. Additional breach metadata provided by XposedOrNot. DataExposed is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.

What was exposed

  • Dates of birth: Your full birth date, day, month and year, collected at signup for age checks, identity verification, insurance quotes, birthday offers or government services.
  • Email addresses: The email address you used to register or log in. It is the most common field in breaches because it doubles as your username on most sites.
  • Genders: The gender or sex recorded on your profile, usually picked from a list at signup, sometimes with a title such as Mr or Ms or a gender identity option beyond male and female.
  • Names: Your first name, surname and sometimes middle name or initials, as you gave them when you signed up. It appears in almost every breach because nearly every account asks for it.
  • Passwords: The secret you use to sign in, stored by the breached service either in plain text, in a scrambled form called a hash, or encrypted. How it was stored decides how quickly it can be recovered.
  • Personal health data: Information about your physical or mental health: diagnoses, medications, test results, conditions, fitness and cycle tracking, therapy notes and insurance claims, held by clinics, apps, insurers and wellness services.
  • Phone numbers: Your mobile or landline number, collected at signup for contact, delivery updates, marketing and two-factor codes.
  • Physical addresses: Your residential, postal, billing or delivery address, stored by retailers, utilities, banks, government services and almost any company that sends you something.
  • Salutations: The title used before your name, such as Mr, Mrs, Ms, Mx, Dr or Rev, stored so letters and emails can address you formally.
  • Usernames: The handle or login name you chose for an account, which may be public on forums, games and social platforms or used privately to sign in.

What to do now

  1. Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
  2. Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
  3. Turn on two-factor authentication on your email account first, because it is the reset path for everything else.
  4. Treat calls and messages that quote real details about you as hostile until you verify them another way.

Frequently asked questions

What data was leaked in the CTARS breach?

The CTARS breach exposed Dates of birth, Email addresses, Genders, Names, Passwords, Personal health data, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Salutations, Usernames. About 12K accounts were affected.

Was I affected by the CTARS breach?

Run the free email breach check with the address you used on that service. It will tell you whether your address appears in this dataset.

What should I do about the CTARS breach?

Change the password on that account and everywhere you reused it, then turn on two-factor authentication. Passwords from this breach are traded and tried automatically against other sites.

Next steps