What happened

South East Water, City West Water and Yarra Valley Water disclosed that a data-security incident at research contractor Metrix Consulting affected about 4,000 business and residential customer records shared for a research project. The exposed data included billing names, account numbers and addresses, with some email addresses and phone numbers; the utilities said financial, payment-card and driver's-licence data were not accessed. No water-treatment, distribution or operational-technology impact was reported. Although sometimes recirculated with recent Australian cyber incidents, the disclosure dates to March 2020. The marker is a metropolitan reference rather than a breached utility facility.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.