"Telstra Blames IT Blunder for Leak of 130,000 Customer Records"

Telstra, an Australian telecommunications company, has stated that an internal Information Technology (IT) error caused a data leak affecting hundreds of thousands of customers. On December 9, the company announced that it had discovered an error that had resulted in customers' names, phone numbers, and addresses being listed on the Directory Assistance service and the White Pages. The White Pages is an Australian directory of contact information for people and businesses, whereas Directory Assistance is used to look up a phone number for a person or business listed in the pages. The services were previously government-owned but are now privatized, and Telstra is responsible for providing both to the public as part of its regulatory obligations. According to Telstra, the leak was caused by a misalignment of databases. Telstra began working to remove the identified impacted customers from the Directory Assistance service and the online version of the White Pages, according to Michael Ackland, Telstra's CFO. Telstra is also contacting all affected customers and offering them free IDCARE assistance, a service that provides national identity and cyber support to Australia and New Zealand. Telstra was also the victim of a data breach in early October 2022, which involved unauthorized access to employee information. It stated at the time that a third-party platform had been compromised and was being used to access its data. The data was restricted to company employees and dated back to 2017, with an estimated 30,000 people affected. This article continues to discuss Telstra's recent internal IT error that led to customer records getting leaked. 

ITPro reports "Telstra Blames IT Blunder for Leak of 130,000 Customer Records"