The incident has already cost Optus 10,000 customers. The company has set aside $140 million for cybercrime related costs,including replacing hacked identity documents,complimentary subscriptions tocredit monitor Equifax and an independent report commissioned by Deloitte. It also plans to invest more in enhancing the company’s cyber capabilities and rebuild trust.
“That’s our best estimate of the totality of costs that we can foresee at the moment. As the situation evolves,will continue to reassess,” she said.“It’s worth noting that there are a couple of regulatory reviews...we expect that they will fairly assess the totality of our substantial investment in cyber,so we’re not expecting anything to come out of those,but of course,it could and those cannot be provided for.”
Bayer Rosmarin attributed the majority of customer churn to a halt in marketing efforts as the company’s focus turned to managing affected customers.
“We were a large part of influencing that outcome,” Bayer Rosmarin said. “What we have seen since we’ve started turning some of that[marketing] activity back on is obviously an improving trajectory of that negative response. In the context of our more than 10 million mobile customers,the impact remains quite proportionate.”
Optus revealed on September 22 it was the victim of a major cyber breach,which affected more than 10 million former and current customers. The company hired Deloitte to conduct a review of the attack,andthe telco is also being investigatedby Australia’s privacy and telecommunications watchdogs.