OPTUS CYBERATTACK AND MY ATO ACCOUNT
- 360South
One of our clients advised that he had received a call from the ATO informing him that his account had been compromised following the cyberattack on Optus.
How Did It Happen?
“Using my driver’s licence number that had been exposed during the Optus cyberattack, the hacker was able to create a MyGov account and link it to my ATO account”.
“The ATO’s software detected suspicious activity due to the hacker changing my bank account details, contact details and had submitted a (fraudulent) 2022 tax return. It was the amount of details being changed that prompted them to contact me.”
“The fraudulent tax return has been deleted but my ATO account is now locked for security reasons. To interact with the account and submit returns I have to contact the ATO and they will unlock my account for 48 hours at a time.”
“A bit of a nightmare, but luckily it was caught by the ATO before anything really serious occurred. But I would recommend any other Optus customers contact the ATO to prevent this happening to them”.
How To Secure Your ATO Account
According to another client who is an IT specialist, the best way to secure your ATO account is to call them and add voice recognition which provides an additional layer of security. He also recommends putting a temporary lock on your ATO account to prevent details being updated if you know that your details have been exposed to the Optus breach.
