Optus has suffered major data breach after being targeted in a cyber attack which resulted in the loss of millions of customers personal information. If you’re an Optus customer should you be worried? The answer is YES.
The company says the attack occurred sometime on September 21 and exposed The details of more than 11 million customers.
The information harvested in the attack include names, dates of birth, phone numbers, and email addresses.
It is believed other information associated with customer accounts including drivers licence numbers and passport numbers have also been hacked.
Optus says it is working with the Australian Cyber Security Centre and other financial institutions to try to minimise the damage.
Unfortunately a lot of the information that was stolen can be used to steal customer identitys and do things like take out loans, create credit cards and mobile phone accounts in your name.
If you are an Optus customer it would be advisable to take some precautions including:
– changing the password for your Optus accounts and any other account using your Optus email address as your username.
– activating two factor authentication across all online accounts including banks, social media and any other online account.
– Pull credit reports using services like ClearScore to see if anyone is applying for a credit card in your name.
– Keep an eye on credit card and bank statements.
