Singtel’s Dialog Suffers Cyber Attack After Optus Breach

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. reported on Monday that its Australian technology consulting unit, Dialog Group, has experienced a data breach following a massive cyber-attack on its Australian telecom subsidiary Singtel Optus Pty Ltd.

Singtel stated that the hack on Dialog, which serves some of Australia’s biggest companies, may have accessed the data of less than 20 clients and 1,000 existing and former employees.

The company detected the breach on September 10 and said Optus customer information was not affected by both breaches. On October 7, Dialog found that a ‘very small sample of its data,’ including a few private employee data, had been published on the dark web.

Singtel is currently addressing the situation and is engaging with stakeholders who may have been affected by the breach for information, support, and advice.

The company stated Dialog’s systems are completely separated from Singtel, its information technology unit NCS Group, and Optus. There is also no solid evidence proving the two recent data breaches were connected, according to Singtel.

Optus Breach Triggers Cybersecurity, Privacy Rule Overhaul 

The incident at Dialog occurred three weeks after Optus, Australia’s second-largest mobile operator, encountered one of the country’s biggest-ever cyber-attacks that compromised records of 9.8 million existing and former customers.

The breach sparked concerns over a massive financial fraud, as it resulted in unauthorized access to identity document numbers of over two million people. The compromised data included home addresses, driver’s licenses, and passport numbers.

The hack on Optus led to a push to overhaul cybersecurity and privacy law in Australia, with the government exploring possible ways to reduce the amount of personal data that companies require users to provide.

Australia on Thursday proposed changes to consumer privacy policies that would help simplify targeted data sharing between telecom companies and banks.

The changes included telcos sharing government-issued identification documents with banks to let them practice stricter monitoring for clients with compromised data.

The overhaul also involved better fraud detection in the broader financial services sector using current industry mechanisms to report fraudulent activities, such as fraud information exchanges.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the changes had been carefully designed with robust privacy and security protection to ensure that only limited information can be temporarily available to prevent and address cybersecurity issues, fraud, scams, and related activities.