Potential impact of data-leak in Australia
Optus has confirmed that 2.1m out of its 9.8m customers faced some form of data-leak.
Optus has provided updated information about the impact of the cyber attack on its customers. After extensive engagement with the government agencies to meticulously analyse the data for its 9.8m customers, it has been confirmed that the exposed information did not contain valid or current document ID numbers for some 7.7 million customers.
In the worst case scenario, it has less than 0.5% adverse impact on Singtel's share price due to potential regulatory fine, if any. The potential regulatory fine will be estimated at almost AUD 105m on Optus, if imposed.
Last time, the regulatory imposed a AUD 2.5m fine on Telstra in Dec 2021 for data-breach faced by 50K customers. Telstra had failed to follow the due process to protect their privacy while Optus is blaming this breach is because of sponsored terrorists or criminals.
So in the worst case scenario, it is a regulatory fine estimated to be almost AUD 105m on Optus at about AUD 50.00 per customer who face data leak. Any potential fine might be a one-off cost and translate to ~0.2% adverse impact on Singtel's market cap of almost SGD 43bn.
This should not have too much of an impact and I believe SingTel will be bullish on a longer term outlook. Many analysts also suggest TPs in excess of SGD 3.00. Personally I feel any prices below SGD 2.60 will be a good buy. I am quite vested in this stock so my views could be biased, DYODD before making any trading decisions.
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