Telemarketer Pareto Phone collapses, months after donors and charities alike exposed by hack

Pareto Phone’s employees were told on Thursday (19 October) not to bother showing up for work on Friday.

About 100 people are believed to have lost their jobs, and now an ex-employee has come forward to reveal the company’s poor data-handling practices.

After the company fell victim to ransomware gang LockBit in August, a wide swathe of data was posted on the darknet, including detailed documents related to the charities that had employed the telemarketer, including donor details. The records also stretched back as far as 2007 and impacted charities such as the Fred Hollows Foundation and the Australian Red Cross.

Speaking to the ABC, the anonymous ex-employee – who worked for Pareto Phone for five years – said records were rarely deleted.

============

“The client would send us millions of rows of data,” the woman said. “I don’t ever recall that data being removed from our system.”

The woman also said that Pareto had not been in touch with her or other ex-workers about whether or not their own records had been exposed in the hack.

“It’s petrifying,” the woman told the ABC. “Somebody could take that and use that against me.”

Pareto Phone is currently under investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner over potential privacy breaches.

David Hollingworth

David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.