As you are probably aware, in the last few days there has been an enormous data breach relating to Optus customers. Millions of Optus customers have been affected by the breach and an extraordinary amount of personal data may have been compromised. But there are a number of actions you can take to minimise the impact on your business and personal matters.

Data impacted:
  • Full Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Email Address
  • Phone Number
  • Physical Address
  • Medicare Number
  • Passport Number
  • Drivers License Number
  • State Proof of Identity Cards
  • ABN/ACN
Practical steps to take if you have not noted any suspicious identity and financial actions since the breach:
  1. Contact your relevant State Department of Transport to organise a replacement license. QLD are replacing licenses of those affected at no cost. NSW has a cost of $29. Please check with your state for any potential costs involved. QLD Dept of Transport Hotline for those affected: 07 3097 3108 Monday to Friday 8am to 4:30pm
  2. Contact Medicare for a replacement Medicare card
  3. Contact DFAT for a replacement passport
  4. Contact your banks to notify them of your involvement in the breach and request additional fraud protection measures be put in place as well as cancelling all credit and debt cards. In addition, request that no credit applications are processed until you notify them otherwise.
  5. Place a credit ban via Equifax, Experian or illion. You can do this across all three agencies with one form. The Equifax form can be found here
  6. Contact all of your investments, including international ones, to notify them of your involvement in the data breach and ask how they can ensure that no fraudulent purchases or sales will be undertaken while your data is compromised
  7. Contact any other telecommunications companies you have accounts with to notify them of your involvement and ask what needs to be done to ensure that your phone number and personal information cannot be taken from their system and used.

Precautionary measures to be taken:

  1. Where possible, ensure Multi-Factor Authentication has been set up for any accounts
  2. Check the security activity logs in all email and social media accounts for suspicious activity and report to the appropriate provider
  3. Check your account recovery settings to ensure that your recovery details are correct and haven’t been changed to unrecognisable email addresses and phone numbers
  4. Do NOT use links in text messages or emails even if they appear to have come from trusted sources. When in doubt, always call your bank or other service providers to confirm any details sent to you electronically 5. Consider subscribing to www.scamwatch.gov.au for up-to-date information about scams impacting the community
  5. Check that your superannuation account details remain unchanged and talk to your fund about additional security measure options when changes are attempted.
  6. Contact any Buy Now Pay Later institutions and request updated security measures.

It is our understanding that Slater & Gordon are looking into a class action against Optus regarding this data breach. We have no contact details or further information regarding this at this time, but we will update you as and when new information comes to light.

For Questions and other concerns

You may speak to one of our advisors via call at 1300 844 678 or drop us an email at [email protected]. 

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