Technology

Millions of Australians are now worrying about their driver’s licences, passport numbers and Medicare numbers ending up in the hands of criminals because Optus hung on to this data for six years.

Not even two weeks have passed since Uber was hacked, and now Optus, one of Australia’s leading telecommunications companies, has suffered a similar, much more public fate. 

Zero Trust is an approach that keeps people, information and organisation safe by giving the right people access to the right data and applications and removing unnecessary risks.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took to Parliament to state that the telco should pay for victims to obtain new passports.

Some Australian businesses are taking the opportunity to remind customers of their own robust security systems in the wake of the Optus hack.

Companies must reconsider how they store and retain data and reassess who they use to process it.

Optus is offering customers 'most affected' by last week's data breach a free subscription to credit-monitoring company Equifax Protect. That name should ring a bell.

Australian states and territories have been scrambling to change their driver's licence renewal policies in the wake of the Optus hack.

An account claiming to have hacked Optus has deleted its extortion threat and apologised, not long after releasing a data set it claimed belonged to 10,000 customers.

As a result of the hack, many Optus customers have been keen to change their passports and licences as a safety measure, but it's not the easiest or cheapest process.

Small Business Minister Julie Collins says the government “expects Optus to do everything to support affected customers, including small businesses” in the wake of the massive cyberattack on the telco.

Marketing and branding experts distill three lessons in brand communication and trust from Optus' handling of its data breach.