23-5-2024 (SYDNEY) Australia’s government media regulator, the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA), is taking legal action against Singtel-owned telecommunications company Optus for a catastrophic cyber attack in 2022 that exposed the personal data of 10 million Australians.
According to a press release by Optus, ACMA has alleged that the telco failed to protect the confidentiality of “personally identifiable information” of its customers from unauthorized interference or access under the country’s Telecommunications Act.
Optus stated that it is currently unable to determine the potential quantum of penalties resulting from these proceedings and added that it intends to defend itself in court.
The company also said that it had apologized to its customers and taken “significant” steps, including working with law enforcement and other authorities, to protect them in the aftermath of the breach.
“As the matter is now before the Australian Courts, Optus Mobile will not be commenting further at this time,” the telco giant added.
In September 2022, Optus was hit by a devastating cyber attack that resulted in the theft of customers’ names, birth dates, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers, and driving license numbers, according to the BBC.
The hackers initially demanded a ransom of A$1.5 million (S$1.34 million) to stop the data from being sold online, as reported by Australian media News.com.au. This included the release of data containing customer records.
However, the hackers eventually apologized and deleted the data.
In response to the cyber attack, Australia toughened its penalties for repeated breaches of customer data, with organizations now facing fines of more than A$50 million (S$44.75 million).
While Singtel initially stood by Optus’ chief executive officer, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, following the hack, her position became increasingly untenable after a 12-hour outage in November 2023 that left nearly half of Australia’s 26 million people without phone or internet services.
The outage led to public backlash in Australia and a stock sell-off in Singapore, prompting Rosmarin’s resignation two weeks later.
In a separate press release on May 23, 2024, Singtel announced that its net profit for the fiscal year of 2024 (FY2024) had fallen by 64 percent to S$795 million from S$2.23 billion in FY2023, primarily due to “exceptional” non-cash impairment provisions of S$3.1 billion.
Most of these impairment provisions were attributed to Optus, comprising a charge of approximately S$2 billion on the goodwill of Optus and an additional charge of about S$470 million on Optus’ fixed network assets.
These provisions pushed Singtel into the red for the second half of FY2024, with a net loss of S$1.3 billion, compared to a net profit of S$1.1 billion during the same period in FY2023.
However, Singtel stated that if the non-cash impairment charges were excluded, its underlying net profit increased by 10 percent to S$2.26 billion, reflecting increased contributions from regional associates and higher interest income from capital recycling.
