- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Neil Hodge2022-10-07T18:17:00
Australians had their personal data held to ransom following a cyberattack that exposed the records of 9.8 million current and former customers at Optus, the country’s second-largest mobile phone network provider.
The fallout from the breach is ongoing and involves not just Optus and its Singapore-based parent company, Singapore Telecommunications, trying to calm public nerves and find out what happened and how. A range of Australian federal and regional government agencies are attempting to fight fires and reassure citizens their health insurance, passport information, and driver’s license details are either safe or will be so again.
On Sept. 22, Optus issued its first public statement about the cyberattack that exposed customers’ names, dates of birth, phone numbers, and email addresses. For some customers, addresses, driver’s license details, and passport numbers were also exposed; Optus has since confirmed the government identification numbers of 2.1 million customers were compromised.
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The Australian government is weighing stringent new privacy reforms that would establish among the steepest penalty regimes in the world—up to AUD$50 million (U.S. $33.5 million)—for serious or repeated breaches.
The Optus data breach should serve as a reminder for all organizations that cybersecurity incidents are serious business risks that are costly to make right.
Samsung collected too much personal data from customers and failed to adequately secure it, leading to two data breaches this year and potentially millions of harmed individuals, a class-action lawsuit alleges.
The U.S. Department of Energy released supply chain cybersecurity principles meant to help strengthen key technologies used to manage and operate electricity, oil, and natural gas systems.
The Environmental Protection Agency is increasing its inspections of public drinking water systems after finding a majority of those reviewed were vulnerable to cyberattacks and related threats.
Verizon’s annual data breach report shows trends in cybersecurity incidents, including more ransomware and extortion attacks last year.
