60,000 customers will have to change their passwords. Picture: Sam Moody
UP TO 60,000 Telstra customers will be forced to change their account passwords after a privacy bungle exposed their personal details on the internet.
Telstra shut down its entire BigPond email network on Friday night, after the security breach, which could have led to customers' personal email accounts being hacked.The lockout lasted almost 24 hours and affected more than one million users.
The security blunder occurred after a customer found that an internal Telstra database naming customers on bundle plans could be accessed by the public.
The website detailed customers' plans, contacts they had had with Telstra customer service and some account passwords.
Telstra customers locked out of their accounts lashed out at the company on Twitter yesterday, labelling the breach pathetic.
Some threatened to leave the network.
"Bigpond I am beyond being nice! Restore my email access now.You have lost me, and my company as customers, on Monday we walk," Pheenix eye tweeted.
"This is crazy, I'm trying to run a business, any ideas how much longer bigpond will be out??" Eileen Hall posted.
Choice spokesperson Ingrid Just said small businesses affected by the email shutdown could take action.
"Compensation would be on a case-by-case basis, but Telstra should be ready and accessible to deal with it," Ms Just said.
"Keep records and evidence of the potential loss of business and discuss it with Telstra. There should be a full investigation into how this happened."
Customers were being contacted last night, a Telstra spokeswoman said.
"Telstra takes its customers' privacy seriously," she said. "We apologise to customers who may have been impacted by this issue.
"The site has been disabled and a full investigation is under way.
"We will be proactively contacting customers impacted by this."
An Australian Communications Consumer Action Network spokeswoman said the breach would be fully investigated.
"It almost defies belief that a company like Telstra did allow a leak like this to happen. They have a responsibility to their customers to ensure their data is kept private and they are a repeat offender," she said.
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