Singapore Provides Cyber ​​Agency Support in Optus Hack

Hacking into an IT services company owned by Optus parent company Singtel has caught government regulators. This comes after Singapore’s prime minister offered his country’s assistance in investigating a damaging cyberattack against an Australian telecommunications company.

Dialog, a state-owned IT services company acquired by Singtel this year, disclosed a data breach on October 10, saying it could affect about 1,000 employees and fewer than 20 customers. However, the client’s internal emails obtained by this masthead indicated that the data accessed may include staff names, emails, and financial information for some of the client’s staff. suggesting that it could accumulate more people than previously revealed.

In an email, the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator informed employees that an unidentified intruder had accessed payroll information held by Dialog. Dialog previously provided payroll services to a subset of its workforce.

“The personal data that may have been accessed includes names, employee numbers, emails, bank details, tax IDs, superannuation fund IDs, superannuation funds, and a variety of payroll-related data.” said in an email from the regulator.

Singtel, a telecommunications conglomerate investing in Asia, Australia and Africa, is majority-owned by Temasek Holdings, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the Singapore government. About 10 million Australians whose personal information was stolen in a cyberattack He made only one comment about the Optus hack, saying he supports the company’s leadership and is committed to cybersecurity.

Optus and Dialog are separate businesses with separate IT systems. There is no suggestion that the hacks of the two companies are related.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who is in Canberra for the annual bilateral summit, stressed that Optus is owned by Singapore but is headquartered and incorporated in Australia.

“Because that activity is being carried out in Australia and not in Singapore, Australian rules and regulations apply in dealing with this incident,” said Lee Kuan Yew, the son of modern Singapore’s founding father. Lee, who has led one party leader, said: He said Singtel is taking the incident seriously and supports Optus in meeting Australia’s post-hack requirements.

“Our national cybersecurity and information and communications agencies are also ready to reach out to our Australian counterparts and provide assistance to the Australian government if they need our assistance,” Lee said Tuesday. said at a press conference in Congress.