Chinese cyber attack hits Australia’s Optus corporate customers

Email and internet services of some corporate clients of Australian telecommunications provider Optus were affected yesterday for over two hours following cyber attacks originating from China.

Optus, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Singapore's SingTel and the second largest telecommunications company in Australia, said that some of its customers were hit by denial of service (DDOS) attacks originating from China yesterday afternoon, slowing their email and web browsing services from Australia to overseas locations

The attack affected only corporate customers, and services were resolved after two-and-a-half hours, when Optus, managed to block the point of interconnect on its international transmission link to the US, which goes through China.

The cyber attack slowed down Optus's internet speeds and delayed email for some its corporate customers using US-based spam-filtering services, which created a backlog of thousands of emails and messages.

Some of the companies affected were the Australian Associated Press, International Data Group and the Australian arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd.

However, these companies were not the target of the cyber attack, but a multinational financial services company, which Optus did not name, was the target, the Australian media reported.

This is not the first time that Australia has experienced a cyber attack originating from China.