Optus' 11 million customers are in trouble... because it had been a victim of a major cyber attack.
👉 Background: Optus has always been up there with Telstra in the battle for the major telco in Australia. In 2001, it was fully acquired by a Singaporean company called Singtel.
👉 What happened: Late last week, Optus announced it had been a victim of a major cyber attack. The hacker stole a heap of info on Optus’ 11 million customers.
👉 What else: Customers' home addresses, drivers licences, passport numbers, phone numbers and names were all stolen as part of the hack. And Optus isn't the only Aussie company that has been hit with an attack like this recently.
💡Major data breaches have become like a rendition of Up There Cazaly at the AFL Grand Final. You know it’s coming... but it's just unclear on the remix.
💡For some hackers, the reason to break into systems is purely financial. They’ll put ransomware on a company’s systems and demand a chunky payment to decrypt it. This happened to Toll Group (twice!) and Nine Entertainment.
💡Other hackers will breach systems for the notoriety - like the teenage hacker who broke into Uber’s internal system. In Optus' case, it's not yet clear what the hacker wants - but we could be gearing up for more texts, calls and emails from random numbers.
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