Australia’s Latitude Financial said on Tuesday it refused to pay a ransom to hackers who stole millions of records in one of the country’s biggest data breaches. The consumer credit company that offers loans and credit cards said last month hackers stole the personal records of nearly 14 million customers in Australia and New Zealand. Latitude Financial said it recently received a ransom threat from the group behind the cyberattack and ignored it on the government’s advice.

“We will not reward criminal behavior and we do not believe that paying the ransom will result in the return or destruction of stolen information,” the Australian Stock Exchange said in a statement.

The company added that paying the ransom “will only facilitate further extortion attempts”, without detailing the hackers’ demands. The stolen data includes 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand driver’s licenses and 53,000 passport numbers. Another 6.1 million records dating back to at least 2005 were stolen, containing information such as names, addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.

Home Secretary Claire O’Neill, who previously described predatory hackers as “despicable criminals”, said the blackmail “only feeds the ransomware business model”.

“They agree to take action in exchange for payment, but often again become victims of companies and individuals.”

Hackers have targeted some of Australia’s biggest companies in recent months in a series of separate attacks that have put authorities on high alert. Russian hackers are accused of gaining access to millions of medical records at Australia’s largest private insurance company, Medibank, in a failed blackmail attempt last November.

Telecom company Optus was the victim of a similar massive data breach in September in which the personal data of up to 9.8 million people was accessed.