ACMA fines Telstra for SIM swapping prevention misses

Telstra has been fined $277,000 by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for not using required identity authentication processes to prevent SIM swapping fraud.

ACMA said the SIM swapping caused at least $39,500 in losses to 15 customers, between January and October last year.

Such fraud involves scammers putting victims' phone numbers on their own subscriber identification modules, allowing them to intercept mobile device traffic such as multi-factor authentication challenge codes.

Telstra has processes in place to prevent SIM swapping, but ACMA member Samantha Yorke said the telco's frontline staff didn't follow them in the above case.

A further 13 attempts were identified by ACMA in which the telco's agents failed to provide additional fraud protections to concerned customers, or where Telstra had the information to identify these as being at risk of fraud.

The authority accepted court-enforceable undertakings from Telstra to strengthen its fraud prevention processes, and to improve staff training.

Today's fine is dwarfed by the $1.551 million penalty that Telstra copped in July 2024, which was also meted out for failing to perform customer ID authentication processes.

ACMA said it has fined telcos more than $5 million to date as part of the authority's crackdown on mobile number fraud.

It previously fined Medion Australia nearly $260,000 in July 2024.