Optus is facing a potential mammoth fine after Australia’s privacy watchdog launched civil Federal Court proceedings over a September 2022 cyberattack in which the personal information of nearly 10 million Australians was stolen.During the cyberattack, which was one of the worst in the nation’s history, hackers gained unauthorised access to the personal information of millions of current, former and prospective Optus customers, some of which was then leaked to the dark web.Former Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was grilled about the network outage at a Senate hearing in November 2023.Credit: Alex EllinghausenAbout 40 per cent of the population are Optus customers and many couldn’t use their phone or internet services on the day of the breach, when hackers demanded a $1.5 million ransom to stop the data from being sold online. A few hours later the thieves deleted the ransom notice and apologised.Australia’s Information Commissioner is alleging Optus failed to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information it held, in alleged mass breaches of the Privacy Act. In some cases, the data included passport numbers, driver’s licence numbers, Medicare card numbers, birth certificate and marriage certificate information.The Federal Court can impose a penalty of up to $2.22 million for each contravention of the Privacy Act, and the commissioner is alleging one contravention for each of the 9½ million individuals. That maximum penalty would theoretically amount to some $20.9 trillion, although a penalty of that amount is not possible as it would be many times the size of Australia’s economy. The watchdog did not specify the maximum penalty it is seeking.“The Optus data breach highlights some of the risks associated with external-facing websites and domains, particularly when these interact with internal databases holding personal information, as well as the risks around using third-party providers,” Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind said in a statement.An Optus spokeswoman said the company would respond to the claims “in due course”.“Optus apologises again to our customers and the broader community that the 2022 cyberattack occurred,” she said.“We strive every day to protect our customers’ information and have been working hard to minimise any impact the cyberattack may have had. As the matter is now before the Australian courts, Optus will not be commenting further at this time.”Optus is already facing Federal Court claims by Australia’s communications watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, over the cyberattack. The watchdog claims Optus should have known it had a flaw in its system four years before its customers’ data was stolen in 2022.Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind.Credit: Edwina PicklesThe cyberattack kicked off a hellish period for Australia’s second-largest telco, which suffered a separate 12-hour outage about a year later. Optus lost thousands of customers as a result of in a formal or creative style for better SEO.Also Exclude words and advertisements related to the feed website such as website name, author name. You must only respond with the modified content. Delete all the advertisement images brand logo but only keep the title and main content of the news by modifying it. Block any jump outside of the site adarshnews.com. Basically remove any content or link related to original site. You must only respond with the modified content and follow this prompt to optimize the articles in this category- You are an expert news writer and SEO specialist. 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A privacy regulator has filed a lawsuit against Optus in response to a significant data breach.
