No cyber attack, no hack: upgrade shuts ASX

Monday’s major ASX outage was a timely reminder of the fragility of the infrastructure underpinning some of our most important assets.

Monday’s major ASX outage was a timely reminder of the fragility of the infrastructure underpinning some of our most important assets — and that upgrades don’t always go according to plan.

The technical glitch, which hit on Monday morning and froze trading for the rest of the day, came after what ASX boss Dominic Stevens said was more than a year of testing, including four dress rehearsals.

But as every IT executive is acutely aware, no number of dress rehearsals can adequately prepare for the real thing.

Some Twitter users assumed the outage was due to a cyber attack or malicious hack, but the truth was much more mundane.

It was due to an upgrade of the ASX’s trading technology developed by US exchange Nasdaq.

Similar upgrades have knocked out services from the likes of Microsoft Outlook, Google and Telstra this year alone.

Just a week ago a massive outage hit Microsoft’s 365 suite of products, including Outlook, with the company blaming a botched network driver update.

A similar issue plagued Google in September, with customers left unable to access their emails due to a “routing server crash”.

And in August, Telstra users across Australia were denied access to the internet altogether, with the telco blaming a DNS issue.

Despite Australia relying on technology more than ever, Australians can take note that even the world’s biggest companies — and trading platforms — can fall victim to untimely disruptions. No vendor is immune to downtime, no matter how large the company or how critical the service.

The ASX could have conducted four more dress rehearsals, but it would not have changed the fact that best laid plans often go awry. The best advice is to always have a back-up plan.

And, at a personal level, it’s yet another reminder to always keep a back-up of your most important files — your photos, your music, your memories — because every system is fallible and it’s a matter of when, not if, it will crash.