'A miss on our side': Telstra outage caused by known issue
Telstra failed to prioritise fixing known vulnerabilities in its systems despite being warned about them months before they triggered a major nationwide outage.
A July Telstra network outage, affecting around 45% of calls and data sessions, was caused by a faulty power supply replacement that incorrectly reset a GPS card's date to 2006. This error went undetected due to insufficient oversight and unmonitored alarms during non-business hours. The independent report by Technology Audit Partners (TAP) revealed that two key engineers were on leave at the time, and the company failed to prioritize fixing known vulnerabilities.
Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady acknowledged the findings and vowed to address the issues, including reallocation of resources to improve the timing system's priority. The outage also affected 8 additional Triple Zero calls, all of which have received welfare checks. The Australian Communications and Media Authority is still investigating the incident.
Written by urgent.news from ABC News AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
