Police in Australia launched Operation Hurricane in cooperation with the U.S. Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) 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., also known as Singtel.
The man, who has not been identified publicly, has yet to appear in court on two charges that carry prison sentences of up to 10 and seven years respectively.
Police said he sent text messages to 93 Optus customers demanding 2,000 Australian dollars ($1,300) be deposed in a bank account or the data would be used in a financial crime. None of the targets paid.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Assistant Commissioner Justine Gough said the investigation is continuing.
“The Hurricane investigation is a high priority for the AFP and we are aggressively pursuing all lines of inquiry to identify those behind the attack,” Gough said.
“Just because there has been one arrest does not mean there won’t be any more arrests,” she added.
The Australian government announced changes to its telecommunications law to protect vulnerable Optus customers.
The changes to the Telecommunications Regulations allow Optus and other providers to better coordinate with financial institutions and governments to detect and mitigate the risk of cybersecurity incidents, fraud, scams and other malicious cyber activities, a government statement said.