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A 19-year-old Sydney teenager has admitted to a blackmailing attempt on almost 100 Optus data breach victims in court.
Rockdale resident Dennis Su appeared in Sydney Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday (8 November) to plead guilty to two counts of using equipment connected to a network to commit a serious offence.
The 19-year-old has admitted to using information from the Optus data breach to attempt to blackmail nearly 100 customers into giving him thousands of dollars.
Between 24 September and 6 October, Su threatened to use the customers’ personal information for financial crimes if they refused to pay $2,000 into his bank account.
None of the hacked Optus customers paid the blackmail fee.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers seized a phone used to blackmail the hacked Optus customers when they arrested Su at his south Sydney home on 6 October.
The charges were laid by police after they identified that the bank account linked to the scam belonged to the teen.
In late September, anonymous hackers targeted Optus in a major data breach that impacted thousands of customers and their personal information.
Su is not accused of being involved in the hack; however, he tried to financially benefit from the illegally obtained data.
Magistrate Susan Horan told the court that “this is a serious example of this type of offending”.
If convicted, the court was told the maximum penalty for the two charges would be 10 years imprisonment.
Given the severity of Su’s crimes, Magistrate Horan ordered a sentencing assessment report.
The court was told the report would be tendered to the court in addition to a medical report, five character references, and a letter of apology from the teen.
Su will remain on bail over the holiday period until his next court appearance at Sydney Downing Centre Local Court on 7 February for the verdict.
[Related: Federal opposition urges Albanese to crack down on cyber security]
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