Embattled telco takes another hit after anti-scam fail
Optus has been accused of enabling fraudsters to prey on its customers in the latest damaging blow to the struggling telco.
Months after the devastating triple zero network failure linked to multiple deaths, the telecommunications company has paid a six-figure fine for violating anti-fraud rules.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority found Optus’s Coles Mobile brand breached the rules 44 times in 2024 after fraudsters found their way using a “vulnerable” third-party authentication system.
At least four consumers had their mobile services hijacked by fraudsters who were able to bypass parts of the verification process.
This meant they were able to access customers’ bank accounts and ACMA reported losses of $39,000.
ACMA’s Samantha Yorke said the $826,320 fine Optus paid was the maximum penalty they could receive under the law.
“Whilst this was a one-off issue that was quickly fixed, it is inexcusable for any telco, let alone Australia’s second largest provider, to not have robust customer identity verification systems in place,” he said.
“Fraudsters are always looking for any weakness in systems and in this case Optus left a vulnerability that exposed people to direct harm.”
Optus both apologized and accepted the penalty, blaming a technical issue in its transport system which it said was managed by the service provider.
The technical issue was claimed to have been resolved within 24 hours and the service provider has since strengthened its resilience.
“Optus continues to work closely with the government, banking sector and industry partners to make it increasingly difficult for criminals to misuse telecommunications services for identity theft,” an Optus spokesperson said.
It was a fresh blow for the telco’s badly damaged image following a major outage in which more than 600 triple zero calls failed to connect.
But Optus defended a nearly 18-hour delay in providing key details to government officials, including that the deaths were linked to the outage.
A new issue was reported at the beginning of November, when a fiber outage in the Hunter Valley region of NSW affected customers’ ability to contact emergency services.
Optus has commissioned an independent review into the cuts, led by Kerry Schott, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
It also pledged to hire 300 new Australia-based call center workers and put forward plans for “onshore” network operations in Australia.
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