Australian telecoms hacker charged

A Sydney man has been charged over a hack attack on Optus last year, during which it is alleged over 400,000 customer passwords may have been compromised.

Officers from the Computer Crimes Unit executed a search warrant at the home of an unnamed 22-year-old Bankstown man yesterday, following an investigation that began in December last year.

A spokesperson for Optus, the country's second largest telecommunications carrier, conceded that the accused did access log-in passwords but stressed he obtained "no access to anything like credit card or financial information".

The spokesperson said the hacker got his hands on "minimal information".

"You can rest assured we closed the gap as soon as we found it," he added. "We have changed many of our protocols and practices," he said, although he refused to discuss exactly what the carrier had done to ramp up its security since the breach.

The man was charged with unauthorised modification of data with intent to cause impairment to a computer, according to a spokesperson for NSW Police.

He was granted conditional bail and will be appear in Bankstown Local Court on 8 August.

Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the Security forum.

Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.