Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has asked all the banks working in the Continent to step-up their cybersecurity measures as soon as possible. Mr. Albanese has also asked government officials to scrutinize all measures taken up by banks operating in the nation and ask those which are below to mark to bolster security.
The PM decided after Optus, the telecom operator of Australia, revealed that it became a victim to a sophisticated cyber attack resulting in private information of over 10 million customers been accessed by hackers.
Optus, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom LTD said that about 40% of the population’s PII such as driving licenses, passport numbers and home addresses were stolen by hackers, who are now threatening to release the data, if their demand for $1 million is not fulfilled on time.
Albanese called the incident as a ‘wake-up call’ for the entire corporate sector and is urging banks and those operating national infrastructure to up the security.
Australian government might impose a hefty penalty on the telecommunication firm for showing a lapse in protecting the information of its customers, a move similar to the one observed in the European Governance, as per the GDPR laws of 2018.
Currently, the mobile firm has announced of offering a free credit monitoring and identity protection from Equifax Inc Credit Agency and announced that no account passwords or payment card info was leaked in the attack.
NOTE- Australia announced in the budget session of 2020 that it will pledge $1.1 billion investment over a decade to bolster the internet network infrastructure of public and private companies serving public. Now it is looking to fasten the process and complete it by the year 2025.
