Following a cyberattack on Optus, the second-largest telco in the nation, Australian authorities announced on Friday that they had started an effort to protect the personal details of 10,000 people whose information may have been shared online.
These actions occurred three days after an anonymous person claimed online that they had disclosed the personal information of 10,000 Optus customers and would continue to do so every day until they earned $1 million.
The Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) assistant commissioner for cyber command, Justine Gough, stated that the organization was attempting to locate and safeguard the same number of individuals whose “information had been unlawfully exposed.”
The targeted effort, which is in addition to a global investigation to find the hacker, is the police’s most overt admission yet that there is a threat to the public. However, Gough would comment explicitly on the ransom message.
Authorities have neglected to comment on their investigation since Singapore Telecommunications-owned telecom initially reported the theft of the information of up to 10 million users on Sept. 22. This number is 40% of Australia’s population.
The 100-point identification of those 10,000 persons may have been compromised, according to Gough.
Australian legislation assigns point scores to the experts that can be used for personal identification to pass sensitive transactions, which normally require at least 100 identification points.
According to Optus, the stolen data contained driver’s licenses and passport numbers worth 40 and 70 points, respectively.
Police, according to Gough, were doing data analyses to identify the 10,000 consumers, keeping an eye out for indicators that thieves were attempting to sell the data online, and alerting banks to any questionable activities.
While she likewise refrained from commenting on the ransom post, which was quickly removed, Gough stated that numerous leads were being pursued by law enforcement agencies worldwide, including the U.S. FBI.
“Whoever is responsible for this attack has used cryptographic algorithms,” she continued.
The expense of restoring clients’ compromised passports had been publicly demanded by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Optus had complied, he said on Friday.
Albanese claims that Optus has responded to his request. “They’ll cover the price of replacing affected customers’ passports. I think that’s extremely appropriate.”
Some state governments in Australia have declared they will replace compromised Optus subscribers’ driver’s licenses.
An email request for feedback from Optus did not receive a prompt response.