Aussie Telco Telstra Breached, Reportedly Exposing 30,000 Employees' Data

Telstra, Australia's largest telecom carrier, reported this week that it was the victim of a data breach — just two weeks after its rival telco Optus reported a cyberattack of its own.

According to a Reuters report, Telstra is downplaying the incident, calling it a "small data breach," adding about 30,000 current and former employees dating back to 2017 were compromised.

In comparison, Optus suffered a breach of its live database of nearly 10 million customers.

A Telstra spokesperson said the data exposed is "very basic in nature," adding the company views the incident as "...an attempt to profit from the Optus breach," according to Reuters, which added the spokesperson did not elaborate further on any potential link between the two cyberattacks.