Australian police make first arrest in Optus hack probe

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A police investigation of a cyberattack on an Australian telecommunications company in which the personal data of more than one third of Australia’s population was stolen has resulted in its first arrest. Police launched Operation Hurricane in cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau Investigation after Optus, Australia’s second-largest wireless carrier, lost the personal records of 9.8 million current and former customers on Sept. 21. The hacker dumped the records of 10,000 of those customers on the dark web last week as part of an attempt to extort $1 million from Optus, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. Police say they arrested a 19-year-old Sydney man on Thursday and charged him with using the dumped data in a blackmail scam.