What Happened
In the ricpublications.com.au (R.I.C. Publications) incident in 2026, the Australian educational publisher reported that on 30 May 2026 an unauthorised email was sent from an automated email function associated with its website, prompting an internal investigation and public statements denying that customer data had been compromised. However, on 4 June 2026 a hacker posted a file on an online forum claiming to have obtained customer records for more than 116,000 individuals, reportedly including names, email addresses and other customer information, which external cybersecurity reporting treated as a data breach involving customer data being published online. R.I.C. Publications’ own update reiterated that it had “no evidence” of customer data being breached or leaked and framed the incident as limited to the email function misuse, while security media and cyber‑insurance coverage classified it as a significant breach of customer records, leaving the exact scope and veracity of the hacker’s 116,000‑record claim contested.