The Chaser Report - Unmasking The Optus Hacker | Gabbi Bolt | Floyd Alexander-Hunt

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

Floyd and Gabbi charge forth with their deductions on who the Optus hacker might be. Meanwhile Dom reads out the texts he's received since being hacked. Plus Charles offers his thoughts on why Optus CEO should NOT resign in shame. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence. This is Chester. Welcome to Chester Report. Yes, we're going to have an opt-us episode. That's Floyd Alexander Hunt and Gabby Bolt. I think that really added a vibe. That was great.

I think a great intro. It's not every episode with the child. I feel ready to fight. Someone should. So I gather you're activated by the Optis League. Correct. I am a victim. I identify as a victim

of the Optus breach And have Optus been really good And bend over backwards? Definitely haven't bent over backwards This has still been charging me A ridiculous amount For not that much data No

And all of it's getting stolen anyway Yeah, all of it's getting stolen I get the odd text from them Which is nice recently I often find I don't get many texts So it is nice to be like Oh, who's this from? Are they ransom demands?

No, they're like CyberTack Cyber attack? Cyber attack. I've forgotten how to speak. Cyber attack updates. Dom, you were also with Optus. So yeah, I'm with Optus.

Let's compare texts. Are they more into you or me? Let's find out. It's crazy. And look, I got no message. I got messages from them back in 2020 about coronavirus. They're nothing until Sunday. It's like, honey, I've moved on from you.

I'm not interested. You're in my life, but you're not in my life. But now I've had three texts in the last 24 hours from me. Oh, my God. It's like clingy. And what do they tell? I mean, is there any update anyway? I love this one.

This one's like, okay, confirming your license number was exposed. But your state government will provide you with advice on any action. And then follow up, state government advises you. New South Wales government advises you. You do not need to replace your driver's license. It's fine. Why? Why is it fine?

What do you mean? They're just like, oh, we can't be fucked. Yeah. Changing it. my partner's with Optus and he got a text being like confirming your license number's been exposed. Yeah. And he literally is such a boy.

He just looked at it and you went, oh yeah. And then he put his phone back down. Meanwhile, I'm like, what are you going to? You can get a free license from the government. Like you can get free. And the government was talking about like free passports and stuff as well. But I'm worried about that because that would be like a six month delay. Yeah.

It's so weird. The Optis are like, we fucked up, but also you can contact your local government representative about this. I know. Like where's the, where's the, where's the, I think they're not telling us enough, right? Like, because I think they've also leaked other things, like Medicare, numbers. Yeah, whatever you use to ID yourself when you signed up, that's what they will have leaked. And to answer your question, Floyd, of who they love more between you and me.

Yeah, sorry, let's get back to. So I happen to find, you know how, like on Gmail, most important emails get filed away and a thing called updates that you never look at, right? Yeah. So I happened to be looking at that and I saw an email saying your driver's license details have been leaked, change it immediately. we'll give you money to like subscribe to Equifax this service that like... Oh, so you're one of the... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so... Okay.

Guess how many texts I've received from Optus about this problem, as in in the format that I would actually notice. Zero. Zero text. I have zero text. Wait, so you're getting emails. Yeah. I'm getting emails that I barely saw and I'm looking back at the...

Have you checked your email? Well, I think I signed up to Optus on my old email and I don't have access to that anymore. Oh, yeah. That's a pretty good thing. But looking back through my most recent text from Optus... One of the most recent ones is, how do you write our service between zero and ten? Yeah, lol. They are more keen on you if they're sending you.

No, but I barely saw the email. So are you changing your driver's license number? I've already changed it. What's the new number? Yeah, that's so frustrating because I'm memorand. Charles is that. I'm going to read out my new, I'm going to open up the service New South Wales app. Wait, too, was it a difficult process to, like, change your driver's license?

Did you have to go in and stuff? No, I just did it online. And yet I had to go in for an eye test. Okay, I'm looking at my driver's license online. Card number not yet advised. Ah. So yes, I'm in limbo. I'm not legally allowed to drive.

Oh my God. No, I am legal. I have to print out a piece of paper. System is, print out this A4 piece of paper and sign it and just take it with you everywhere. It's just amazingly low. Well, it's the same as when you're upgrading from your peas to your green peas to your full license. When I first got my full license, they gave you that same piece of paper. and the whole punched license.

So I'm like, if I get pulled over, I have no faith that a cop's going to go, oh yeah, that's legit. Yeah, like this random A4 piece of paper. So here's the thing that kind of shits me, right, is they're kind of like, okay, fine, we'll just change your details, it's all fine. And then now that NSW government says,

you don't need to change your license number, only your card number, right? So the license number is the same. It's the one I've had for 20 years or whatever. That's because I know that. That's useful. And they're now saying every single person who needs that detail has to give the card number

as well and verify it that way that can be changed. What are the chances that that's true? I reckon it's impossible. If my whole life I've given everyone my driver's license details, just the number of the, like, the license number, and now they're saying, oh, it's fine. You don't need to change it. And, yeah, basically what I'm saying is,

every single thing I own will now have been scammed, which is probably not very much anyway. But no, they're completely fucked it. It's amazing. Yeah. Actually, being an Optus customer for a while, it's actually completely not amazing. Yeah, it's not.

Floyd, do you own anything? Do you mean property? Or like... You know, worth stealing. Assets. Ah, not really. I think the most expensive thing I have is my violin. Oh, yeah.

It's not your violin anymore, Floyd. No, but I'm pretty sure, like, how do you, you can't... You can't use your driver's license details to own a dime in. No, no, you know what they do. They take out loans. They can take out loans. Yeah, they can set up an account. Oh, right.

Apparently the banks, so my partner works at a bank. So I asked him, what's going to happen? But apparently the banks are equipped for it, certainly like the big ones, because you have like this two-step verification and all this sort of thing. Like, for example, someone could call I have my name, date of birth. I mean, they could have that anyway.

They could just get that. You could ask them on the podcast. Yeah, exactly. But they then would need to get like a number, like, like from the app. So that need to also have... I have two-step verification on everything because I'm... But what they do is they go and get...

The first thing they do when they want to like take over your life is they go and get a new phone account. So that all the verification texts... This happened... This happened to a friend of mine with Telstra, right, and got totally... Like, that's exactly what happened is that he took over the phone number of this guy and then had access to all the two-factor of things.

authentication text that came through Telstra. And the solution that ended up, so at the time, he just had to stand and wait for about an hour and a half at the Telstra shop, waiting for, because they said, this guy has ported your phone. Like, it's going to come online on his phone at some point in the next hour and a half.

We're just going to have to stay here, wait for that to happen, and then we can cancel it or something. Oh, that's true. It's just this terrifying, stressful thing. But then, after that, they went, the guy who stole your identity still has all the information, 100 points of information, that allows him to just set up one. You know, later, yeah, exactly, brought it back to Telstra. And so their advice to him was just never have a Telstra account ever again, right?

And he said, it's so annoying because there's no, there's no bigger solution than just, Oh, well, you'll just have to opt out of society. So, hang on. So you're saying literally they said, don't have a Telstra account. So presumably he then went and got an Optus account. Yeah. That's going to shit with Optus.

The Chaser report. More news. Less often. My favorite thing about the Optus hack, though, is just the hackers. I just think there's such an interesting character. Wait, is it hackers. I thought it was one of us. If those messages are real, but they seem stupid enough to be real.

It's like, they are real. And the first message was so threatening being like, if you don't give us a mill, million dollars, we'll be releasing 10,000, can you buy for a million dollars? It was so clearly a teenage boy. Yeah. It really was, because the spelling was identical to how my 14-year-old would spell.

Hang on a second. Hang on a second. Because they don't teach grammar at school anymore. They don't teach proper use of verbs. I don't think it was a teenager because the second message they released was like, we might have bitten off more than we can chew here. We don't feel good about taking innocent people's data, which is why we're trying,

I'm kind of on their side a little bit, where I'm like, they're after big business, not the little guy. We won't release any more details. We're sorry. He had clearly chatted to his mum after that, before that night. Hi, my mom, I'm the Optus hacker.

I've got a million people's details. Oh, yeah, all right, sweetie. I love it, don't you love how they're portraying the optus hacker in the news? It's just like a guy in a hoodie. Yeah, that's always a guy in a faceless. Exactly. black like smudge as a face and then a hoodie and like this stance. It's good for a podcast, isn't it? So they've asked for a million and then gone, oh no, actually

I don't want to be mean. Well, they still want the million, I think, but they don't want to release. No, no, no, no, no. They've said we've cancelled all the demands and we've elated it. It must be a woman. It has to be a woman because this honestly happens to me every month. I behave crazily. Yes. And then I'm like, oh shit, I was on my period. Sorry. And it's like, it has to be hormonal. Like that switch is too. There are some days... That screams where my interesting thoughts are like, I could kill this person.

And then the next day I'm like, that's fucking crazy. That was really mean of me. Why was I like that? And then I apologize to that person despite never stating my intent to murder them. I'm like, I'm really sorry, I wanted to murder you. Have either of you on the hormonal roller coaster ever tried to hack into the open back door of a major telcoe though? Like, is it a thing? Yeah.

I had no. For sure. I wouldn't be in comedy. That's for damn sure. If I had this going to be a hacker, I'd be a hacker. No, but there was no hack. involved. Oh, well, then I'd just do it. Yeah, absolutely. I just don't have the skills to do so. It's also, I mean, other people have made this point, but it is very suspicious that the

thousand for a million dollars. Like, that's, it must be a rich person who doesn't need money, right? He's got to be a boomer who doesn't understand, like, how else has got so much money now. Also, though, I do find it funny that it was just a million dollars and Optus were like, no. Yeah. Like, on some level, you're like, surely you just give them a million bucks and go, yeah, please don't release people's data and then boom, 10,000 people's data was released. then you're incentivising other people to look up that completely open passwordless URL and do the same thing.

It's like free lot of it is, man. They really proved how easy it is to hack it. It's crazy. Why does Optus have so much of our info? Well, this is the really stupid thing, is it all the details you give them. It's the law. Yeah, they've got to keep,

it's because it's the metadata law. You've got to give them all this stuff. They've got to keep photocopies of it and store it all for years. For seven years. For seven years. And the government. After the account is closed. And so all, every single privacy expert in Australia, this is, the federal government changed the law a few years ago.

To make us more secure. To make us more secure. No, no. And every single data expert and privacy expert said, this is ridiculous. We should change the data retention laws to prevent companies from having to do this and prevent them from being allowed to do it, right? Yeah. And Optus, in their submission to that inquiry, said, no, no, no, we think we should just keep all this. material because it'll be fine.

It also said, look, it's too onerous. Yeah. These requirements are too onerous. To delete the information. We don't want to have to. Oh, we just want to, Hank, keep on the information. It's fine. I just think I've got, I've got one of these ones.

Wait, so who are you, Gabby and Charles? And we're Telstra. Oh, because she's from Bathurst. Oh, of course. They had a data breach on Telstra day. There's an Optus in Bathurst. I thought over in the country paid more for Telstra because it was like, shit. Is that not true?

Oh, I mean. This is the, the. I don't know. I went with. I went. I'll be honest, I went to Telstra because my mum's with Telstra. And it was easy to go to the shop when I was a teenager. To be fair, that is the only marketing strategy Telstra has, right?

That's just inertia. Yeah, pretty much. But I mean, yeah, the service is, I think, good. Like I've never, except for Edinburgh. God damn, it sucked in Edinburgh. Although I did, oh, no, I changed my SIM to a British Sim. So that was my first mistake. Well, you know, you know, Telstra's also had a massive data leak in the past week.

It was on Telstra Day. It was on Telstra Day. Was it on Telstra Day? They were like, we're celebrating Telstra Day. And then there was a huge. data breach on that's that's just why I never I have two-factor authentication on everything and I never keep more than like five bucks in my main account because if they wanted to steal from my credit card that's all I'm

the same I do that more than five bucks in any other account though no but they don't know what though tell the difference with Telstra's big massive privacy breach it was of staff yeah I really think Optus is due it's a little cheek like not that I would advocate anyone to hack in Optus's staff database Everyone's listening. Definitely don't go and, like, share the details of the CEO on the dark web. Don't do that, people. What do we think about the fact that it's like, I know it's probably just a co-inky-dink,

but like Gladys Brediglian takes over his head of Optus and then this big corrupt, she's not CEO. She was very good at covering things up. I know. That's why it's bizarre good. But then it eventually all leaked out. It does come out. Yes.

This is the Daryl McGuire of the Optus. Gladys is surprised. probably up there now at a press conference just going, we always follow the security advice. I'd love if she went back to like doing daily press conferences, you know, today. 30,000 people have had their data link. You know, I'd feel comforted if I at least knew the numbers, you know. Yeah.

But then it has, it also had the same sort of end, which is, I don't know whether you remember, but Darryl Maguire had the crucial evidence on his phone. Oh, yes. And then he accidentally drove over it in a tractor, remember that? Yes. I find that interesting. and it destroyed all the data.

I drove over it in a tracker. Who was he with? And this is what happened to the Optus leak data. The hacker suddenly just, oh, I've deleted us. And too, too, who's part of the way that's quite asperically. The proverbial tractor. Do we think the CEO's going to step down from Optus? I don't think she should.

You don't think she should? No, definitely not. She probably should, but like, I don't, I just don't have anything. Yeah, what, why not sales? I just think. You like hacking happening, don't you? It's amusing. I believe all the world's information should be free.

All right. That's why Charles tells everyone his phone numbers. I-4-19-282-1-2-1-2-1-2-1-lake. And my driver's license is on Facebook. But no, it is so rare to have a female CEO in this day now. Yeah, it's exactly. That's true. CEO.

Because if you think about it, a male would never, would just never step down. Oh, right. Yeah, there's never consequences for CEO. Yeah, that's how. Why should a female CEO have to have a female CEO have to have a It's consequences for a massive epoch-defining fuck-up. The only, you know, CEO who's resigned in the last few years because of a fuck-up was Christine Holgate, who was the Australia Post-Ceater.

Oh, yeah, the woman. Another woman. Yes, interesting points. The women copped the blame, the men get away with it. So, you know, Alan Joyce has completely destroyed Qantas, but no one's going, he should, although he gets extra bonuses. Yeah, well, maybe they did, but then he just ignored it and just stayed. That's exactly what happened.

I was going to say, people did ask him to leave. They were like, Alan, maybe you should jog on, mate. Okay, yeah, I agree. You've convinced me. I think she shouldn't. She should stay. She's a girl boss. It doesn't matter if you're a corrupt CEO or a corrupt CEO.

You all declare each year. The world is not going to be equal until mediocre, hopeless shit female CEOs also get to stay and get you back. Yes, exactly. That's true. Radical equality. Good on them. Good on them. Our gear is from Road.

We're part of the ACASC Creator Network. And if you want to hack the Chaser database, you can do so because they're with office. Well, I think it's not a financial upside. Actually, there was a crucial password that I had to get off somebody for part of our data the other day. And it was literally password with a capital B. I have never guessed that because they're not surprised. They're not that stupid. Charles, can you write to Gladys Berger-Clean and offer her the position of CEO of the Chase?

That would be amazing. That's a good idea. Do it. Do it. I'd be laughing even more if she took it. Yes, wouldn't we all? Can you imagine she took it? Then you're fucked.

Then you actually have to employ her. She's probably got like a high salary requirement. Just if you hire her, she'll self-immolate herself out of a job within a few months. Yes, that's nice. Yeah, yeah, true.