Did Optus execs prepare for this hack by staring at sad dog memes?

Both Optus and the hackers have gotten way in over their heads, bumbling their way through this crisis ever since the news broke. Think about it, says James Morrow.

I can’t be the only Australian who heard about the Optus hacker’s demands and immediately thought of Austin Power’s Dr Evil putting his pinky to his cheek and asking for … dramatic pause … “one mill-eee-yon dollars”.

But, and not to come across as all victim blaming here, but can we really say that Optus has acquitted itself much better than the hackers who attacked it here?

This is not to say that the executives managing this crisis are criminals, like the individual or individuals who ripped off all their customer data.

But let’s be clear here.

Both Optus and the hackers seem to have gotten themselves way in over their heads and have been bumbling their way through this crisis ever since the news broke.

Think about it.

I can’t be the only Australian who heard about the Optus hacker’s demands and immediately thought of Austin Power’s Dr Evil.

Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, Optus CEO.

The hacker or hackers were apparently able to break in and steal an absolute mountain of data through what Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said was a pretty unsophisticated attack.

A few million personal records scooped up, they then demanded a comically small ransom.

Zella Njuhovic at the QLD Department of Transport to get a new licence after the Optus data hack, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

It sounds like the cyber equivalent of some crime movie where a small time hood jimmies into a garage to steal a pushbike, winds up finding a suitcase of some mafioso’s cash, and then is too dumb to know what to do with it.

Yet while in the movies the crim would be faced with the threat of payback from assorted violent hoods, in the real life version of this caper the biggest threat is a bunch of telecommunications execs sniffling their way through uncomfortable radio interviews.

I am not with Optus and know that this could have happened to any company because hackers are constantly trying the electronic locks on the doors of every major corporation so I won’t get too smug here.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has slammed Optus’s response to the hack. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But because I am not with Optus I was also able to cringe-laugh my way through the media appearances of Optus corporate affairs chief Sally Olerich and CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, whose entire training for this sort of incident seems to have been looking at memes of sad basset hounds trying to blame the cat for knocking over the planter.

I was driving to Canberra when Olerich was being grilled by Chris Smith on 2GB and almost had to pull over the performance was so embarrassing.

Hopefully the strategy was deliberate, like putting on the fake tears for the Highway Patrol, rather than the genuine best a bunch of six and seven-figure executives could come up with after having taken all the media training in the world.

Customers will have to work hard to determine if their information has been compromised. Picture: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Honestly, neither side here is bringing their best.

It is as if both sides got some of that brain-fogging long Covid that Twitter medicos keep warning about.

Even today finding out information about what was stolen from whom is like pulling teeth.

The nicest thing would be to hang up on both sides of this deal, but for millions of customers who may face years of anxiety that people are taking out loans and doing God knows what in their names, that’s not an option.

Originally published as Did Optus execs prepare for this hack by staring at sad dog memes?