Telco Giant Give Away!

Telstra’s most recent blunder has led to the Telco giant inadvertently releasing the detailed private information of over 15,000 of their customers! The information leak was anything but minor and sources have revealed that the information was available to a world wide audience for the past 12 months.

Although Telstra removed the files soon after being notified of their apparent blunder, there were over 150 recorded incidents of the information being downloaded. The files, dating back to 2009, had been freely available and indeed accessed for well over a year. The leaked information included names, telephone numbers and a significant number of customer’s residential addresses.

The information was purported to have leaked into the public domain through an IT blunder where a third party IT provider had accidentally turned off an access control. Although Telstra has now removed access to the files, and has notified all affected parties, the Office of Australian Information Commissioners (OAIC) has announced that the Telco giant failed to adequately and swiftly respond to the error and has accused the organisation of not taking reasonable steps to prevent security and privacy breaches.

Telstra’s giant give away is yet another unfortunate hiccup in the organisation’s recent history. They remain in damage control and continue to repair their tainted reputation following several other highly publicised security breaches.

The public remain hopeful that recent amendments to the Privacy Act will enable Telstra to clean up their act!

To read the full article go to http://www.itnews.com.au/News/374722,telstra-breached-privacy-act-by-exposing-user-data.aspx