Telstra Alami Leaks Data Largest, 132 Thousand Customers In Australia Affected

Telstra's chief financial officer, Michael Ackland, admitted that there was a data leak. (photo: twitter @MichaelAckland3)

JAKARTA - Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra Corp Ltd said on Sunday 11 December that 132,000 customers were affected by internal errors that led to the disclosure of customer details.

Telstra, which has 18.8 million subscribers equivalent to three-quarters of Australia's population, said an internal review found that the details were publicly available due to the "dissimilarity of databases".

Telstra referred Reuters to the company's blog post, which was published on Friday, December 9 which said "names, numbers and addresses of some customers" were listed when they shouldn't.

"We removed the details of the affected customers identified from the situated aid service and an online version of the White Page," Telstra's chief financial officer, Michael Ackland said in a statement.

The wrong disclosure occurred after the company last October experienced what it called minor data breaches, linking it to third-party disruptions that revealed some employee data back to 2017.

Telstra's internal staff email said the current number of employees and former employees affected by the violation was 30,000.

Regarding the current problem, Ackland said "no cyber activity was involved".

"Protecting the privacy of our customers is very important and this is an unacceptable violation of trust," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"We are in the process of contacting every affected customer to tell them what happened," he added.

The Australian telecommunications, finance and government sectors have been on high alert since Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, revealed on September 22 that system breaches may have endangered up to 10 million accounts.

The data revealed in the breach, taken as part of an advanced hack, including home address, driver's license, and passport number which is one of Australia's biggest cybersecurity breaches.