Scammers already targeting Optus Customers exposed in million dollar ransom demand

We brought you the news on the weekend that a user, claiming to be in possession of the data had posted a threat to Optus to pay a $1million USD ransom in return for the data. To support their claim the user released 200 lines of text from the hacked data, and we can reveal that today users on that list are already receiving scam sms messages.

As if to prove just how challenging things are going to be for the millions of people involved in this hack, less than 48 hours after the data was published online at least one user is already getting SMS scams.

The 200 lines of data were published to prove the validity of the claims made by the user “optusdata” and progress their request for $1million USD in Cryptocurrency.

EFTM has sighted the data, and verified that it does contain valid user details, including many personal ID document numbers.

One user we spoke to on the weekend, Wayne, contacted EFTM today to advise they had received the following sms message:

The Bank account number is Australian, and as such could well be traced, so we’ve encouraged Wayne to report the text to Scamwatch.

It’s not likely the text message has originated from the actual Optus Hacker, more likely an opportunistic scammer taking advantage of a the free availability of a few hundred people’s personal information.