Following a significant loss of personal data from the nation’s second-largest telecom, Australia will change its privacy laws to let banks be notified of data breaches in the corporate sphere.
On Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a radio interview that the hacking of Optus, the second-largest telecom, was a “major wake-up call” that required changes to warn financial institutions against hacks and enable them to “defend their consumers.”
Businesses would have to notify banks of client data breaches under the proposed reforms so that lenders may check their accounts for unusual activity.
The details of what “measures need to be taken in the future,” according to Minister of Cybersecurity Clare O’Neill, will be revealed in the upcoming days.
Optus said last week that one of the largest data breaches in Australian history may have exposed the personal information of up to 10 million users.
Names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, and licence and passport numbers are among the information that has been compromised, according to the carrier, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications.
Since then, a self-described hacker has made threats online, demanding US$1 million in cryptocurrency from Optus in exchange for not disclosing the information that was leaked.
Optus has not yet revealed who is responsible for the intrusion, but the telecom has claimed that it is possible to identify several European countries from the attacker’s IP address.
The planned improvements, according to Sydney-based tech sector analyst Trevor Long, do not go far enough.
“The government needs to implement a straightforward credit blocking system that people can use to prevent credit from being applied for in their names. When you need a loan or credit card, turn it on; when you don’t, turn it off. Any fraudsters are effectively stopped at the start by the off switch.
The data breach at Optus is the latest in a string of cyberattacks this month involving major companies, including Samsung, North Face, American Airlines and Uber
