A Sydney man was sentenced to 18 months of Group Correction Order (CCO) and 100 hours of group service for making an attempt to blackmail clients utilizing the Optus information breach final yr.
An unnamed particular person, aged 19 when arrested in October 2022 and now 20, orchestrated an SMS-based extortion scheme utilizing leaked data stolen from safety blunders.
The suspect contacted dozens of victims and informed them their private data could be offered to different hackers until a cost of A$2,000 was made to a checking account below their management, making them “fraudulent”. threatened for use.
Scammers allegedly despatched SMS messages to 92 people who had been half of a bigger cache of 10,200 data briefly uncovered on crime boards in September 2022.
Australian Federal Police (AFP), which launched Operation Guardian following the breach, stated it had no proof that any of the affected clients had transferred the requested quantity.
After his arrest, the offender pleaded responsible in November 2022 to 2 counts of utilizing telecommunications networks to commit a severe crime.
“Legal use of stolen information is a severe offense and might trigger severe hurt to communities,” stated AFP commander Chris Goldsmid.
Australia’s telecommunications service supplier was hit by a large hack final yr that uncovered the passport data and Medicare numbers of some 2.1 million present and former clients.