Labor calls for Service NSW lockdown in wake of Optus data breach

Optus were last month awarded a Service NSW contract worth more than $3 million, sounding alarm bells for the safety of hundreds of thousands of personal and financial details.

Alarm bells have been sounded over the Optus data breach, with Labor saying the NSW Government need to lockdown Service NSW – the government’s online portal which has hundreds of thousands of residents’ personal and financial details – in the wake of increasing attacks on major organisations.

Optus were only last month awarded a Service NSW contract worth more than $3 million – the latest in a string of contracts between the telco giant and the NSW Government.

The NSW Government’s Transport department is among the government sectors which have big-money contracts with Optus – with transport’s contract with Optus to provide hardware and phone services worth more than $12 million over three years.

Anoulack Chanthivong, Labor’s spokesman for finance, said the NSW Government needed to move to reassure Service NSW users their data was safe from future attacks.

It comes after more than 100,000 Service NSW users had their data compromised in a March 2020 cyberattack.

Optus customer Evie Adasal outside the Optus store in George Street, Sydney. Picture: John Appleyard

“The last thing NSW taxpayers need is for the Liberal Government through Service NSW to not properly manage this Optus contract and to underestimate the risks despite almost 10 million Australians having their personal details used as a ransom bargaining chip on the internet,” he said.

“Millions of dollars will be spent on this lucrative contract and every preventive measure must be undertaken to prevent data hacking and potentially millions more to be spent fixing the problem afterwards.”

Yasmin Catley, Labor’s spokeswoman for Customer Service and Digital, said the government had to make sure future contracts with Optus weren’t hacked.

“The current situation is causing every Optus customer great anxiety in having their personal details hacked and the NSW Government should be no different,” she said.

A Department of Customer Service spokesman said Optus had confirmed no NSW Government services provided by Optus had been impacted by the most recent breach.

Both Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello and Premier Dominic Perrottet have reiterated in recent days they had been talked regularly to Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, with the Premier saying he was open to working with the federal government to tighten cybersecurity laws.

Premier Dominic Perrottet this week said he was open to working on cybersecurity with federal counterparts. NSW Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

For Sydney resident Evie Adasal, an Optus customer, the implications of the data breach only became clear in the days following the telecom company’s data breach.

“It didn’t come as a shock at first – just because we’re living with everything being hacked constantly,” she said.

“But the more I used my phone, the more paranoid I got …(But) there’s nothing I can do until it impacts me.”