Latitude Financial, an Australian consumer finance firm, has said that it will refuse to pay a ransomware fee after being attacked last month.

In a statement published on Tuesday, the firm said that its stance is "consistent with the position of the Australian government" and that paying the fee would "be detrimental to our customers and cause harm to the broader community by encouraging further criminal attacks."

The company last month confirmed that hackers had stolen nearly 8 million drivers licence numbers from customers in Australia and New Zealand in what was one of the country’s biggest confirmed data breaches. It said that it does not believe that paying a ransom will result in the return or destruction of the stolen information.

Latitude Financial, which provides consumer finance services to retailers including Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi, has taken its platforms offline in the period since the attack.

In a statement, the company said that it is in the process of contacting all affected customers, past and present, and that it will complete its support and remediation processes “as quickly as we can.”

Commenting on the update, Latitude Financial chief executive officer Bob Belan said: "Latitude will not pay a ransom to criminals. Based on the evidence and advice, there is simply no guarantee that doing so would result in any customer data being destroyed and it would only encourage further extortion attempts on Australian and New Zealand businesses in the future.

"I apologise personally and sincerely for the distress that this cyber-attack has caused and I hope that in time we are able to earn back the confidence of our customers."

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