The largest telecommunications companies in the Australian continent were exposed to a data breach of more than 10 million users by an unknown person
The person who hacked the data published a message he sent to the company "Optus" informing them of the hacking process and asked the company for 1 million US dollars, about 1.5 million Australian dollars, and gave the company a week to make the company's decision whether to pay the ransom or not.
The hacker promised the company to sell the data to other parties, and according to the information, the data includes phone numbers, e-mails, dates of birth and driving license numbers.
The hacker asked the company to send the ransom via the cryptocurrency Monero, and Optus says it can't guarantee that the hacker will keep the data even after the ransom is sent to him.
The population of Australia is about 25 million people, and the hacker obtained the data of 10 million people, meaning that he got the data of half of the Australian population.
A number of Optus subscribers expressed their concerns about their personal data being leaked, and some filed complaints with the police due to the inability of Optus to protect their personal data.
It is possible that the hacker will be sentenced to 10 years in prison if caught, but his identity is still unknown.