Days after as many as 9.8 million Optus customers had their personal information compromised in a major data hack, the Coalition has called on the Albanese government to toughen penalties for cyber extortion.

Coalition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews and cybersecurity spokesman James Paterson want Labor to sign on to a private members’ bill that would create new offences for cyber extortion and ransomware activities with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.