Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has revealed more than 2 million customers had their personal identification documents compromised by hackers, with updated figures provided in a video posted online.
Key points:
- Optus released a video online revealing that the cyber attack exposed the personal identification numbers of more than 2 million people
- The company’s CEO said an external review was a key step in rebuilding trust with customers
- The company is under pressure to “step up” its response to the data breach
In the video message, Ms Bayer Rosmarin said that while “the numbers have gone down”, the company was still “deeply, deeply sorry” for the information leak.
In the video posted on the Optus website, Ms Bayer Rosmarin revealed that approximately 1.2 million customers had at least one number of a current and valid form of identification and personal information compromised.
In addition, approximately 900,000 customers have had numbers associated with expired IDs as well as personal information compromised.
“Although the numbers have gone down, we are disappointed that a customer’s information could even be accessed,” Bayer Rosmarin said.
“We deeply regret that this could happen, especially because we really care about safeguarding customer information and invest millions of dollars and have teams of people whose job it is to prevent something like this from happening.”
The company has urged other customers to “be vigilant”. Although about 7.7 million customers did not have compromised identification documents, the attack still exposed information such as email addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers.
Optus has also engaged consulting firm Deloitte to conduct an independent external review of the recent data breach that put the personal data of nearly 20% of its customers at risk.
In a statement, Optus said the review would include scrutiny of Optus’ security systems, controls and processes.
“The review was recommended by Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and received unanimous support from the Singtel Board, which has been closely monitoring the situation with management since the incident came to light “, says the statement.
The Optus CEO said the launch of the external review was part of the journey towards rebuilding trust with customers.
“While our overwhelming focus remains on protecting our customers and minimizing the harm that could result from the theft of their information, we are determined to find out what went wrong,” he said.
“This review will help ensure we understand how it happened and how we can prevent it from happening again.
“It will help inform the incident response for Optus.
“This can also help others in the public and private sectors where sensitive data is held and there is a risk of cyber attack.”
The federal government has signaled its intention to urgently review privacy laws in the wake of the leak.
Some ministers have also been critical of Optus, including Government Services Minister Bill Shorten, who called on the company to “step up” its handling of the data breach, saying it was taking too long to provide information about customers with their Medicare or Centrelink details. exposed
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