1000’s Of Telstra Customer Details Compromised

Be careful what you tell Telstra; it seems when it comes to securing customer details online they don’t bother. Today thousands of customers details were compromised when a spreadsheet containing Bigpond customer emails and calling details was available for anyone to see online. Music Feeds has informed Telstra of the breach, however at the time of this article you could still view the spreadsheet here, we have also included screen shots below.

Update: A Telstra Spokesperson has contacted us confirming the details have now been removed: ‘The details have now been removed from the site and Telstra is currently investigating what has occurred’.

At the request of Telstra we have also blacked out the emails in screen shots below.

Update 1:01pm: Telstra have issued a new statement:

Obviously our customers’ privacy is paramount and the site was disabled within an hour of Telstra being made aware of it. Access to the tool for staff has also been disabled. The spreadsheet contained around 1500 BigPond email addresses, some postal addresses and telephone numbers; at this stage we have no reason to believe it contained passwords or credit/financial information. We believe it was a spreadsheet put up by a consultant to use in training /coaching and was not malicious in intent. Telstra will inform the Privacy Commissioner, the TIO and the ACMA. Additionally we will contact all customers whose details appeared on the site.

Earlier in December, Telstra were investigated by the Federal Privacy Commissioner after leaving customer details of potentially millions of customers exposed online. At the time, Telstra said they were unsure how many customer details were compromised, a Telstra spokeswoman said “unsure at this stage, it appears to be limited to bundled customers but we don’t know how many”.

In an age where we are constantly reminded of how important it is to keep our details safe, you’ve really got to wonder how big companies like Telstra continue to get away with breaching our privacy on a regular basis.

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