Optus Breach Aftermath

Australia will make stringent privacy rules to allow banks to be informed of data breaches in the corporate world, following a huge leak of personal information from the country’s second-biggest telecom.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said its a “huge wake-up call” that necessitated reforms that would alert financial institutions to cyberattacks and allow them to protect their customers.

Under the planned changes, businesses would be required to alert banks of data breaches involving customers so that lenders could monitor their accounts for suspicious activity.

Optus data breach last week seen one of the largest in the history of Australia. Owned by Singapore Telecommunications, has said the compromised information includes names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, and driver’s licence and passport numbers.

Although Optus has not identified who is behind the cyberattack, the telecom has said the attacker’s IP address can be traced to a number of countries in Europe.

Optus is offering the most affected current and former customers whose information was compromised because of the cyber-attacks a free 12-month subscription to Equifax.

Equifax is a credit monitoring and identity protection service that can help reduce the risk of identity theft.