A 19-year-old Sydney man has been charged after attempting to extort Optus customers whose information was leaked onto the internet as evidence of a data breach.
Australian Federal Police executed a search warrant at a home in Rockdale in Sydney’s south on Thursday allowing them to search the premises for electronic devices resulting in smartphone being seized
Police say that the man texted 93 Optus customers, demanding that they transfer $2,000 to a Commonwealth Bank account “or else suffer financial crimes against their personal information.
The data breach at Optus was allegedly perpetrated by the person who published customer details to a forum before being pulled offline.
The AFP allege the bank account being used by the 19-year-old belonged to a juvenile.
“At this stage it appears none of the individuals who received the text message transferred money to the account.” Police said.
Assistant commissioner cyber command Justine Gough says the man was not suspected of being the individual responsible for the Optus breach, “but allegedly tried to financially benefit from the stolen data that was dumped on an online forum.”
According to Gough the AFP and state and territory partners launched Operation Guardian to protect the most vulnerable customers affected by the Optus breach, and we were clear that there would be no tolerance for the criminal use of the stolen customer data.
Gough says the AFP, its state partners and industry “are relentlessly scouring forums and other online sites for criminal activity linked to this breach.”
A separate AFP investigation into the data breach is continuing under the codename ‘Operation Hurricane’.
The arrest of the Sydney man for using stolen Optus data to blackmail customers is the so far under Operation Guardian
