TPG Telecom estimates 280K affected by subsidiary breach

TPG Telecom confirmed a cyberattack at subsidiary iiNet and contained the incident on August 16 after ousting attackers and engaging external assistance for cleanup. The intrusion appears isolated to iiNet's order creation and tracking system and involved only limited personal information. Attackers copied about 280,000 active customer email addresses, approximately 20,000 active landline numbers, roughly 10,000 customer usernames, street addresses and phone numbers, and about 1,700 modem setup passwords, plus an undisclosed number of inactive contacts. TPG apologised, will contact impacted and non-impacted customers, and reports no evidence of broader system impact. TPG operates multiple major Australian telco brands and serves millions of subscribers.

At present, the attack is thought to be isolated to iiNet's order creation and tracking system, and contained only "limited personal information." "Limited" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, as the company went on to say that it looks like the attackers copied a trove of active customer email addresses - about 280,000. That doesn't include the approximately 20,000 active iiNet landline phone numbers, or the 10,000 customer usernames, street addresses, and phone numbers, and roughly 1,700 modem setup passwords.

"We unreservedly apologise to our iiNet customers impacted by this incident," it told [PDF] the Australian Securities Exchange on Tuesday. "We will be taking immediate steps to contact impacted iiNet customers, advise of any actions they should take, and offer our assistance. "We will also contact all non-impacted iiNet customers to confirm they have not been affected. We do not currently have any evidence to suggest an impact to our broader systems or other customers."

TPG Telecom operates some of the biggest brands in Australia, and is the second-largest listed telco in the country behind Telstra. In addition to iiNet, it owns Vodafone, Lebara, Internode, Felix Mobile, AAPT, and its eponymous provider, TPG. Per its most recent annual report, it delivers mobile services to 5.51 million subscribers and internet services to 2.08 million across all of its brands.

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