A Sydney man has been sentenced to an 18-month Community Correction Order (CCO) and 100 hours of group service for trying to reap the benefits of the Optus information breach final yr to blackmail its prospects.
The unnamed particular person, 19 when arrested in October 2022 and now 20, used the leaked information stolen from the safety lapse to orchestrate an SMS-based extortion scheme.
The suspect contacted dozens of victims to threaten that their private info could be offered to different hackers and “used for fraudulent exercise” except an AU$ 2,000 fee is made to a checking account underneath their management.
The scammer is claimed to have despatched the SMS messages to 92 people whose info was a part of a bigger cache of 10,200 information that was briefly printed in a prison discussion board in September 2022,
The Australian Federal Police (AFP), which launched Operation Guardian following the breach, mentioned there isn’t a proof that any of the affected prospects transferred the demanded quantity.
Following his arrest, the offender pleaded responsible in November 2022 to 2 counts of utilizing a telecommunications community with intent to commit a critical offense.
“The prison use of stolen information is a critical offense and has the potential to trigger important hurt to the group,” AFP Commander Chris Goldsmid mentioned.
The Australian telecom service supplier suffered a large hack final yr, with passport info and Medicare numbers pertaining to almost 2.1 million of its present and former prospects uncovered.