Australia’s second-largest internet provider has compromised the email addresses or phone numbers of hundreds of thousands of customers.<\/p>\n
A list of about 280,000 active email addresses and roughly 20,000 active landline phone numbers was extracted from iiNet’s order management system, parent company TPG has revealed.<\/p>\n
Another 10,000-odd iiNet user names, street addresses and phone numbers and about 1,700 modem set-up passwords were also believed to have been accessed by an unknown third party.<\/p>\n
The third party gained access to the system after stealing account credentials from an employee, early investigations suggest.<\/p>\n
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TPG says it will contact all customers. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)<\/p>\n
The hack was confirmed on Saturday, but TPG did not notify iiNet customers or its shareholders until Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
“We unreservedly apologise to our iiNet customers impacted by this incident,” TPG said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange.<\/p>\n
“We will be taking immediate steps to contact impacted iiNet customers, advise them of any actions they should take and offer our assistance.<\/p>\n
“We will also contact all non-impacted iiNet customers to confirm they have not been affected.”<\/p>\n
The system caught up in the data breach is used to track iiNet orders, such as broadband connections.<\/p>\n
No credit cards, banking details, or customer ID documents such as passports or driver’s licences were exposed as that information was not held in the system, the company said.<\/p>\n
The telco has removed the unauthorised access from its system and hired external IT and cybersecurity experts to assist its response.<\/p>\n