sydneyoptus has agreed to pay for replacement passports for those affected by a massive data breach australian prime minister anthony albanese said friday as authorities scrambled to protect people whose identities may have been compromised in the cyberattack australian officials earlier in the week demanded that optus meet the cost of replacement passports for customers affected by the theft of personal information it isnt yet clear how many passports optus would need to replace or how much that would cost i think that is entirely appropriate mr albanese said referring to optuss offer to pay for new passports optus one of australias largest telecommunications companies and a unit of singapore telecommunications ltd has said the cyberattack exposed personal information of 98 million of its customers dating back to 2017 including names dates of birth phone numbers and passport numbers the australian federal police on friday set up a new operation specifically to protect people most at risk of identity theft after the attack operation guardian which has been set up with australian state and territory police will protect more than 10000 customers whose personal details were released online as part of the optus data breach afp assistant commissioner of cyber command justine gough said friday that the investigation into the optus data breach would be long and complex and that optus was fully cooperating with the investigation we are aware that the offender has used obfuscation techniques to hide their identity she said the afp on monday launched a separate effort named operation hurricane to identify the criminal responsible for the cyberattack ms gough said that this operation remained a priority for the afp and was working with international partners including the fbi to pursue the investigation