Optus outage: Government left flat-footed by corporate incompetence

The Optus outage may be inconvenient to the daily lives of those who’ve lost connectivity, but on a larger scale it exposes the vulnerability of Australia’s hi-tech infrastructure.

Wednesday’s Optus outage is more than just a case of corporate incompetence.

It is also a glimpse into just how vulnerable Australia’s hi-tech infrastructure is, and what might happen if an enemy decided to exploit these weaknesses against us.

This is about a lot more than just the ability to send a text or make a call.

Banks, hospitals, and businesses have been hit.

All wholesale, retail, enterprise, and government services are down.

Businesses using EFTPOS terminals connected to Optus have been left unable to trade, as have a variety of other individuals and companies that rely on Optus to run their apps, such as Uber.

A general view of the Optus shop in the Sydney CBD as they have an outage today throwing commuter transport and small business into chaos. Photo by: NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

Yet short of a two line statement, the company has said nothing at all – though it has indicated that it is not the work of hackers.

This is cold comfort, of course, because everyone from Russian ne’er do wells to Chinese security agencies will be getting a first hand look at the chaos they can wreak were they to decide to take down a network.

This could be simply to extort money, or as has been flagged in security reviews, interfere with Australia’s ability to respond to a regional military threat.

Businesses across Australia have been forced to warn customers of inconveniences due to a major national Optus outage. Picture Facebook

Meanwhile Communications minister Michelle Rowland, who has lately been more concerned with getting up “misinformation” legislation to control what you read on the internet and “smart TV” rules that could allow the government to decide what you watch, came out forcefully in a Blacktown press conference, and appeared visibly miffed at Optus’s poor response.

She urged Optus to get their act together and tell people what was going on, but that was about it.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Those with a longish memory will recall that this is also not the first time that Optus executives have woken up to a disaster on their doorstep and been found wanting.

Recall last year when Optus was the victim of a major hack that exposed the personal details of nearly ten million customers to data thieves and failed to do the one thing a communications company must do, namely, communicate.

Then as now, Optus executives led by CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin (and whose number includes “MD, Enterprise and Business” Gladys Berejiklian), went to ground.