A hard time ahead for Optus, Singtel’s Australian telco

TO SAY that Singtel-owned Australian telco Optus is having a hard time would be an understatement. It has been one thing after another for Australia’s second-largest telco these past few years. 

In 2022, hackers stole more than two million Optus customers’ personal identification data from the company’s computers. They swept up information such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers and, crucially, birth dates, which serve as a key identifier for many Australian government services.

Optus again hit a rough patch in 2023, when about 10 million customers as well as about 400,000 businesses and several government, health and transport systems were left without service for about 13 hours. Business subscribers were unable to process card payments – the local equivalent of Nets – for the duration of the breakdown.