Xenophon on Census attack: ‘I think it was more pea shooter than bazooka’
THE attack that shutdown the Census has been exaggerated with the system just “falling over”, according to one Senator.
OUTSPOKEN senator Nick Xenophon has reacted to an inquiry into the failure of the Australian Census by saying the system “fell over” after being attacked by a “pea shooter”.
Following day one of a Senate Economics References Committee Mr Xenophon appeared on the ABC’s Lateline program on Tuesday night accusing the ABS of exaggerating the strength of the attack that caused the website to be pulled down for 40 hours.
“The system fell over as a result of it being attacked by a pea shooter but the ABS has made it sound as though they were hit by a bazooka on this,” he said. “I think it was more pea shooter than bazooka.”
The fourth attack which prompted the website to be pulled down and the Australian Signals Directorate to be called peaked at 563Mbps and lasted 14 minutes, which would not be considered significant in the industry.
Mr Xenophon said there were still questions that have not been entirely resolved.
“It’s a basic issue of whether this denial of service attack reasonably led to the shutdown, in other words if we had a more robust system in place would it have led to the shutdown,” he said.
“And I think it’s akin to the system falling over.”
The South Australian senator also said NextGen Networks, who were subcontracted by IBM to provide some of the infrastructure to carry out the e-census, should be given the chance to speak at the inquiry “given the fact that they were the subject of some pretty serious allegations by IBM”.
During the inquiry IBM tried to lay some of the blame on two if its subcontractors for not properly implementing a geo-blocking protocol to safeguard against attacks from outside Australia.
He is calling on NextGen Networks to give evidence at the senate committee saying the company was “basically sledged” by IBM during the first day of the inquiry.
While IBM must bear the brunt of the responsibility for the failure, Mr Xenophon said the ABS must also share some of the blame saying the government body was “overly ambitious”.
WHAT WE LEARNED ON DAY ONE
• IBM apologised unreservedly for the bungled Census for which it was awarded a contract worth $9.7 million to deliver.
• However the company tried to shift some of the blame to subcontractors NextGen Networks and Vocus Communications, claiming they failed to properly implement geo-blocking protocols preventing traffic reaching the website from outside the country. Both companies refuted the allegation in previous written submissions to the inquiry.
• IBM confirmed a majority of the traffic from the two DDoS attacks in the evening of August 9 came from Singapore.
• IBM also revealed a routine test of switching a router off and on again could have avoided the calamity. IBM’s Australia managing senior engineer Michael Shallcross said turning the router “off and on again could have detected the problem earlier, which could have avoided the 40-hour shutdown.”
• No one at IBM was reprimanded or disciplined over the Census failure.
• IBM will likely pay compensation for the fiasco. Kerry Purcell, managing director of IBM offered to pay compensation of any extra costs incurred on the night of August 9 but when pressed on the amount said the matter was “commercial in confidence” at the moment.
• ABS boss David Kalisch praised the level of data eventually obtained by the Census. More than 96 per cent of households contributed data — 4.9 million online and 3.5 million in paper form.
• Some 10,500 Australians have refused to complete the 2016 Census, a decrease on the 13,000 people who refused in 2011.
• Mr Kalisch promises the 2021 Census will adopt a “more rigorous approach” following the lessons learned from this year’s one.
