Millions of Australians were left without mobile and internet after a network failure at telecoms firm Optus.
At some point in history, a huge cyberattack paralyzed the state’s financial and telecommunications systems.
According to Optus, a country’s second biggest telecommunications player, over ten million people as well as numerous companies are being impacted.
Service was restored after approximately 12 hours of disruption or downtime. Optus claimed that there was no sign of a cyber attack.
The company admitted that there was a “technical network glitch” and promised to take additional time to discover the origin of the issue.
Wednesday’s disruption was reported around 04: 00 (17:00 GMT). It took until around 18: This means that to recover or get services online once again, users must provide a password with zero leading zeros.
Kelly Bayer Rosman, the chief executive of the corporation, stated that they did not know what happened yet.
It rendered many Australians without access to call emergency services or any critical helpline numbers. Temporary disruption was experienced for all train services in Victoria.
This made transport delays, cut hospital telephone lines, and disable the payment system.
According to estimates by Optus, Australia’s second largest supplier, this affected more than ten million people as well as thousands of businesses.
Within about twelve hours of being down, services resumed. Optus stated that there was nothing that clearly pointed out to a cyber attack.
The company attributed it to “a technical fault within their network”, adding that an internal review was underway to determine why.
Wednesday’s disruption was reported around 04: 00 (17:00 GMT). It took until around 18: In order to have the services come back online, a user should dial 00.
The company’s CEO, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, said there was nothing apparent about what went wrong.
The country was unable to make calls to emergency services and life-saving phone lines in Australia. The train services in the State of Victoria were also put out of gear, temporarily.
These losses also spread to all the others who utilize the Optus network such as Amaysim, Aussie Broadband, Moose Mobile ,and so on.
A report in Australia’s ABC by one Optus customer said she could not have vital messages on her dad’s medical condition anymore.
“All I am doing is waiting for some results that I cannot even achieve,” says Danielle Hopwood.
Yet another client called Annie revealed that she discovered the upset through her cat’s auto feeder whose wi-fi worked automatically.
Ms Rosmarin apologised for the network failure, telling ABC News: We only give the partial information as we have not carried out an extensive, deep-rooted cause analysis.
As far as I can say, it turned out to be a technical problem in a network, and our teams put every effort to restore services as soon as possible.
She also dismissed claims made by unions, which blamed the part of 600 job cuts on the other.
“Not at all,” she replied. For sure, it’s very sad for us that it happened. We’ll certainly make use of all the learnings here!
Cyber attack led to what looked like Australia’s worst data breach in history.
Additionally, the failures affected other service providers operating on Optus’ network such as Amayssim, MooMoov, Aussie Broadband, and many others.
According to one Optus customer, the incident had made it impossible for her to access vital information regarding the cancer treatment being received by her ailing father.
Danielle Hopwood went further saying, “I am waiting for a result that i cannot even be able to do.”
Annie said it was her feline’s fault and she got this information from a local radio station.
Ms Rosmarin apologised for the network failure, telling ABC News: We’ll need to wait until carrying out a detailed and comprehensive root -cause analysis for giving more details on this matter.
“All I can say about this is that it involved some kind of network problem. However, my company’s engineers devoted all their efforts for the fastest possible restoration.”
She also denied the accusation of unions that the job cuts for at least 600 was part of the reason.
“I do not believe that has anything to do with him,” she said. “Sorry it happened, learned lots and lessons.”
Last year the company experienced what is arguably the largest Australian data breach due to a cyber attack.
Leave a Reply