'I assume I'm not the only one': Mum blackmailed after Optus data breach
A mother whose personal details were leaked during the Optus data breach is facing another threat after being sent a text message by a supposed hacker.
Belinda Smith's five-year-old son has cancer. Now, to add to her difficulties, she is being blackmailed by someone asking for $2000 because the telco giant refused to pay a ransom.
"I got a text message from a supposed hacker asking for $2000 cash because Optus haven't paid their ransom of the $1 million," she told 9News.
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Belinda Smith is now being blackmailed after the Optus data breach. 9News
The text Belinda received last night read: "Hello, Optus has left security measures allowing us to access the personal information of their customers including name, email, phone number, date of birth, address and license (sic) number.
"Optus has since not responded to our demand of paying the $1m USD ransom.
"Your information will be sold and used for fraudulent activity within 2 days or until a payment of $2,000 AUD is made then the confidential information will be erased off our systems."
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The text then has bank transfer details and asks the recipient to send a screenshot once the transaction is complete.
"I guess they are just trying to pressure people into paying the $2000, because I assume I'm not the only one who received that text message and hope that some people send them the money," Smith said.
This afternoon the Commonwealth Bank said it has identified and blocked the account soliciting deposits in exchange for data erasure.
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Earlier, an anonymous online account claiming to be behind the Optus cyber attack bizarrely apologised for the hack, pledging not to make public the information of almost 10 million Australian customers.
Hours before that, several cybersecurity experts flagged a post by the same anonymous account in which it claimed to have already publicly released the stolen private information of 10,000 customers.
That post also included a threat to release more batches each day for the next four days unless demands are met.
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