Government criticises Optus for massive security breach

MELBOURNE: The Australian government yesterday levelled its harshest criticism yet against Optus, the secondbiggest telecoms company, for a cybersecurity breach that affected the equivalent of 40% of the country’s population.

The government blamed Optus, owned by Singapore Telecommunications, for the breach, which affected 10 million accounts, urging the company to speed up its notifito determine which customers need to take any action, but was still seeking further advice on the status of customers whose details had expired.

The company ran a fullpage apology in major Australian newspapers on Saturday for the ‘‘devastating’’ breach that it first reported on September 22.

An unidentified person later posted online that they had released personal details of 10,000 Optus customers and would keep doing so daily until they received $A1 million.

Australian police’s operation to find the person or people behind the breach at Optus is ‘‘progressing well’’, O’Neil said, adding that police would provide an update this week.

O’Neil urged those who had been notified to cancel their passports or other identification cards and get fresh identification documents as soon as possible. — Reuters