Last week, the Optus telecommunication firm experienced a hack, resulting in millions of customer data loss from their servers. From our last update on this issue, the hacker, who goes by the username “Optusdata,” has withdrawn from extorting money from the company. Despite this good news, other hackers still got ahold of copies of the compromised data, posing a risk to affected customers.
That said, recent reports from Optus disclose that former Gomo and Virgin Mobile customers could be included in the massive data breach incident. This news came to light after an identification repair service, IDCare, shared that they had collected months’ worth of complaints from the affected people for the past three days.
Initially, the hacker of the attack said that only Optus’ customer data was compromised. However, several days after, emails had been overflowing from former Gomo and Virgin Mobile customers, reporting about their information also being impacted by the Optus hack.
Gomo and Virgin mobile are subsidiary companies of Optus telco, hence the cause of their involvement with the hack.
The issue has caused massive pressure for Optus since several transport authorities, partners, and clients are demanding compensation, such as passport replacements, because of the hack. However, the telco firm has not given a new statement regarding this concern, which further displeases the affected entities.
Adding fuel to the fire, the IDCare identification repair service reports of receiving massive complaints from affected customers represent the intensity of the cyberattack on Optus and how many have been distressed because of it.
Several key regulators and security authorities have recently discussed the Optus hack, highlighting that it would take time before the impact of the data breach will be fully mitigated. Furthermore, even though the hacker claimed that they backed out from the operation, the threat to the safety of the impacted customers is still present. Thus Optus must hold liable for it with a much-heightened alert and urgency to take action.
The regulators also added that it is the telco’s due diligence to compensate the affected customers and implement damage control instead of the government.
Additional comments are still expected from Optus at this point, and we will be sharing more news whenever available.
