A Sydney man was sentenced to 18 months of Community Correction Order (CCO) and 100 hours of community service for trying to blackmail customers using the Optus data breach last year.
An unnamed individual, aged 19 when arrested in October 2022 and now 20, orchestrated an SMS-based extortion scheme using leaked records stolen from security blunders.
The suspect contacted dozens of victims and said their personal information would be sold to other hackers unless a payment of A$2,000 was made to a bank account under their control, making them “fraudulent”. threatened to be used.
Scammers allegedly sent SMS messages to 92 individuals who were part of a larger cache of 10,200 records briefly exposed on crime forums in September 2022.
Australian Federal Police (AFP), which launched Operation Guardian following the breach, said it had no evidence that any of the affected customers had transferred the requested amount.
After his arrest, the offender pleaded guilty in November 2022 to two counts of using telecommunications networks to commit a serious crime.
“Criminal use of stolen data is a serious offense and can cause serious harm to communities,” said AFP Commander Chris Goldsmid.
Australia’s telecommunications service provider was hit by a massive hack last year that exposed the passport information and Medicare numbers of some 2.1 million current and former customers.
