The Optus breach, which saw nearly 10 million customer records stolen by an anonymous hacker last Thursday, has left ASX 200 telco shares reeling to avoid future cyber incursions.
TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPG) is one of them. As a chief rival to Optus, the company is reviewing its security practices and consulting with the federal government to avoid becoming the next victim.
What did the ASX 200 telco share say?
A spokesperson for ASX 200 telco share TPG recently outlined the company's cybersecurity process in a bid to assure investors that it has the situation under the control, as reported by The Australian.
The spokesperson said:
In light of the recent Optus breach, we have been working closely with our cyber security partners and the relevant government agencies to increase our checks and ensure our systems remain robust and secure.
We also have in place our Cyber Defence and Response Centre which provides around-the-clock, event monitoring, threat protection and intelligence, to help protect our customer's data and our services against online security threats.
TPG has comprehensive processes and procedures in place to securely store customer data and protect it from unauthorised use, access, modification or disclosure. These include implementing both physical and electronic security measures such as data encryption.
The TPG share price is currently up 3.16% to $4.89 in today's trading.
Former Telstra boss weighs in
Meanwhile, former Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) chief executive David Thodey also weighed in on the Optus breach. He reminded the market the attack "could happen to anyone," the Australian Financial Review reported yesterday evening.
Thodey said:
It is the reality of the world in which we live. You've got to be incredibly vigilant. I feel for Optus, it's a difficult situation and I think they're responding as best they can. Because it's going to happen to all of us at some point, and then it's what you do with it or how you respond.
Cybersecurity [is] for all of us, it doesn't matter if you're a small or big business, it is enormously high risk and we all need to be very vigilant about it because it could happen to any of us.
At the time of writing, the Telstra share price is up 1.18% to $3.865.
Singtel's shares plummet
Shares of Singtel, which acquired Optus in August 2001, also took a beating amid the attack and the follow-up attempt at blackmail from the hackers.
Trading as Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SGX: Z74), Singtel's share price dipped 1.12% lower when its subsidiary announced the data breach and continued to fall amid news the hackers sought a $1 million ransom not to dump all of Optus's stolen records.
But the worst of it could be over for Optus stakeholders, as the hackers have allegedly abandoned their plans to hold the data hostage by calling it a "mistake" to publish the stolen records.
