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"We apologise sincerely": Cause of major Optus outage revealed

Optus have finally shared the reason behind the major outage that crippled Australia last week, while laying out the steps they are taking to prevent further disruptions to the network. A statement from Optus cited a "routine software upgrade" as the trigger for the outage, which affected up to 10 million Australians and 400,000 businesses, who were cut off from the network for 12 hours. On Monday afternoon, Optus told its disgruntled customers it had spent the last six days trying to discover what went wrong and insisted they had "taken steps to ensure it will not happen again". "We apologise sincerely for letting our customers down and the inconvenience it caused," the statement said. "At around 4.05am Wednesday morning, the Optus network received changes to routing information from an international peering network following a routine software upgrade." "These routing information changes propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset safety levels on key routers which could not handle these." This action meant millions of routers disconnected from the core network, resulting in a large-scale logistical effort to reconnect or reboot the routers physically, requiring "the dispatch of people across a number of sites in Australia". "Given the widespread impact of the outage, investigations into the issue took longer than we would have liked as we examined several different paths to restoration," the statement said. The outage meant millions of homes were disconnected, with many people also not able to call 000 in an emergency. For compensation of the disruption the outage caused, Optus customers were offered an extra 200GB of data for their "patience and loyalty". But Federal Labor minister Bill Shorten said on Friday the extra data wouldn't "touch the sides" of customer frustration. "The telecommunications industry ombudsman can assist small businesses who are dissatisfied with the responses, I would encourage those customers to keep records, to document the impacts of the outage on them, but it was a nightmare for everyone," he told Sydney radio station 2GB. Image credits: Getty Images

Legal

“She wasn’t ready to die”: Son speaks after mum on life support dies during power outage

A grieving son is calling for energy companies to do better after his mum, Gloria Shae, 80, who was on life support, died during a power outage in Dubbo. Gloria was found collapsed on the floor after her oxygen machine switched off during an unexpected blackout at around 5am on May 8. The great-grandmother was woken up out of a deep sleep and was later on found trying to reach for her bottled oxygen. Now, her son Brian Shae, has spoken up about the tragic incident and is calling for energy companies to do better. "She wasn't ready to die," Brian said. "She was full of life and energy, she had planned what she was doing the next day. He said that his mother was a registered life support customer with Origin Energy and Essential Energy. Neither Brian, who lives in the same property, nor Gloria were notified about the outage by their energy providers. "If there was some sort of automated system that sent out a text message, I could have been there in 30 seconds, in under a minute,” the grieving son said. "We could have assisted her, we could have got her oxygen bottles to her. "She does have oxygen bottles in the home but at night you rely on the oxygen generator." Although emergency services arrived about 15 minutes after Gloria was found, and they managed to restart her heart, Brian said that by then she was already brain dead. Gloria’s oxygen machine was rented and didn't come fitted with a back-up battery. Providers currently only need to give customers using life support four days' notice if there is a planned power outage, but in the case of a blackout there is nothing in place to contact their customers or the next of kin. Instead, they urge vulnerable customers to have a back-up battery or generator, to call triple-zero in an emergency, and to “have contingency plans in place”. “But how could an 80-year-old lady who has woken up out of a deep sleep (and) short of breath manage to go out (and) start a generator?” Brian asked. Health Minister Ryan Park described the death as a “terrible tragedy” and said that he has spoken with NSW Health. The Health Minister also encouraged energy companies to find better ways to support vulnerable customers. “If there’s anything that we could have done differently, we will look at that,” he added. An Essential Energy spokesperson has also commented and said that the team had personally contacted the family to extend their "deepest condolences". Images: 9News

Caring

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp experience global outage

A massive worldwide global outage has affected millions of people trying to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in several countries, including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. Facebook users in affected areas have received the message: “Something went wrong. We’re working on it and we’ll get it fixed as soon as we can.” Instagram has been displaying a 5xx server error message, with the message: “Sorry, this page isn’t available.” The outage was first reported in Australia and New Zealand at about 2am on Tuesday morning, according to the downdetector.com site. As the outage continues, it is <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/facebook-whatsapp-instagram-hit-by-global-outage-why-facebook-isnt-working/news-story/ba143d13bfd1eed83c7cd5e1394aa2e9" target="_blank">costing Facebook</a> $160 million every hour the three sites are down, according to NetBlocks. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience. — Andy Stone (@andymstone) <a href="https://twitter.com/andymstone/status/1445058088436908045?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote> “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said on Twitter. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience.” With the three popular sites down, Twitter poked fun at its rivals on their dedicated UK account. “Hello literally everyone,” they wrote. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> hello literally everyone — Twitter (@Twitter) <a href="https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1445078208190291973?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote> The outage has been blamed on a problem with the Domain Name System (DNS), which allows computers to connect to the web server and website users are looking for. Adam Leon Smith of the Chartered Institute for IT, <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/04/facebook-instagram-and-whatsapp-hit-by-outage" target="_blank">said</a>: “The outage is caused by changes made to the Facebook network infrastructure. Many of the recent high-profile outages have been caused by similar network-level events. “It is reported by unidentified Facebook sources on Reddit that the network changes have also prevented engineers from remotely connecting to resolve the issues, delaying resolution.” <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Was just on phone with someone who works for FB who described employees unable to enter buildings this morning to begin to evaluate extent of outage because their badges weren’t working to access doors. — Sheera Frenkel (@sheeraf) <a href="https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/1445099150316503057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2021</a></blockquote> Journalist Sheera Frankel said the outage was so severe that Facebook employees have been unable to enter company buildings because their passes were not working. Image: Facebook, Instagram

News

Two months of rain in 48 hours

<div class="post_body_wrapper"> <div class="post_body"> <div class="body_text "> Sydney has been thrown into chaos after a devastating storm saw two months worth of rain dumped onto the city. The rain forced mass evacuations, leaving 150,000 homes without power and prompted warnings not to drive to work. Residents in flood-affected areas from the city’s west to the Northern Beaches have been warned not to drive to work as rivers overflowed. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> After a ludicrously dry and hot summer where we desperately dreamed of rain - Sydney has decided to flood over the last 36 hours. Here is my street an hour ago: <a href="https://t.co/Jg9vXn1O2O">pic.twitter.com/Jg9vXn1O2O</a> — Mark Tanner (@marketanner) <a href="https://twitter.com/marketanner/status/1226434743543009281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2020</a></blockquote> “We are trying to ask people to reconsider their travel, a number of roads are closed,” a State Emergency Service said on Monday morning, according to <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7983603/Sydney-cops-TWO-MONTHS-rain-48-hours-deluge-thats-turned-streets-rivers.html" target="_blank">The Daily Mail</a>. “And we are still seeing people driving into flood water.” NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliot urged motorists to stay off the roads if possible. “We have 400 SES volunteers trying to complete the backlog this morning and unfortunately this has included 150 flood rescues,” he said. “The message to the motorists of Sydney and indeed the wider metropolitan area is if you can avoid being on the roads do so.” Wild winds grew to speeds of 107km/h off the coast of Sydney damaged power lines and uprooted trees that left more than 150,000 homes without power on Sunday night and Monday morning. <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8XLcE6gzPF/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8XLcE6gzPF/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Andrew Elia (@acemusings)</a> on Feb 9, 2020 at 2:02pm PST </div> </blockquote> Commuters have also been warned to expect major delays on Monday morning as public transport struggles to cope with the influx of extra passengers. The downpour in Sydney has marked the biggest the area has seen since 1998. The popular Blue Mountains destination of Katoomba was estimated to receive a quarter of the rainfall over the weekend that it normally receives in one year. Bureau of Meteorology state manager Jane Golding said that a king tide and 8m high waves are threatening to cause more damage this week. “Monday and Tuesday will be the main danger period because it is really the height of the waves, the power of the waves coming in from the East which erodes the land,” she said. </div> </div> </div>

News

Commonwealth Bank credit cards and loans “disappear” in online banking outage

Commonwealth Bank customers have had their credit histories seemingly disappear from both the major bank’s smartphone app and its online banking facility. Around 8 am this morning, the disappearance occurred, only showing the funds customers had in savings, according to <a href="http://aussieoutages.com/status/commonwealth-bank" target="_blank">Aussie Outages.</a> The outage also appeared to wipe out the balances of home and personal loans, travel money card accounts, and affected bill payments using BPAY. The bank has warned that scheduled payments will experience delays but reassured customers that they will make sure they are all paid today. <img width="315" height="447" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7817086/cba.jpg" alt="CBA"/> The bank has created a pop-up message, warning customers of the error that has taken place. “We’re working to fix an issue affecting BPAY, Credit Cards and Loans,” the message reads. “You may not be able to make bill payments or see some of your accounts in the CommBank app, including Home Loan, Personal Loan, Credit Card and Travel Money Card accounts. “Scheduled payments have been slightly delayed – we’ll make sure they’re paid today. “Thanks for being patient with us – we’re sorry for the inconvenience.” The digital outage was not part of a scheduled digital update, with the last upgrade rolled out on 4 am Sunday. The online team said the bank was “working to rectify the issue as soon as possible”. Many customers took to social media this morning, worried that their accounts had disappeared. Some expressed annoyance with the issue while others were confused as to why they could not transfer funds between accounts any longer. Have you experienced any issues with the Commonwealth Bank's digital outage? Let us know in the comments below.

Money & Banking

How to prepare for power outages this summer

Summer has well and truly arrived, and unfortunately, with it comes the increased likelihood of power outages – there’s storms, heatwaves, and fans and air conditioners turned all the way up. But are you prepared if your electricity goes out for a few hours or even days? Blackouts aren’t exactly avoidable, but you can make plans for when they do happen. Here’s everything you should have organised and what you need to do… just in case. Before a power outage <ul> <li>Ensure you have a kit with all the essentials, like a torch, battery-powered radio, batteries, candles, matches or a lighter, plus your <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/finance/insurance/2017/11/the-one-thing-every-home-needs-in-an-emergency/" target="_blank">go bag</a>.</li> <li>Stock up on long-lasting food and drink supplies, like canned food, bottled water, long-life milk etc.</li> <li>Invest in a portable charger so you can keep your mobile phone charged in an emergency.</li> <li>If you have been warned a power outage may occur, fill an esky with ice in case you need to transfer any food from the fridge to keep it cold. Keep in mind a fridge full of food can stay cold up to 4 hours after a blackout (and a freezer up to 48 hours).</li> <li>If you have an electric garage door, find out how to operate it manually.</li> <li>Ensure your car is topped up with petrol – you never know when you might need it.</li> </ul> During a power outage <ul> <li>Don’t leave your house unless safe to do so, but do check if your neighbours have also lost power.</li> <li>If possible, report the blackout to your energy provider using your mobile phone.</li> <li>Do not open your fridge unless necessary – your food will remain colder if you keep the doors shut.</li> <li>Switch off all power points and unplug any devices and appliances.</li> <li>If you must leave the house, do not go near any fallen power lines.</li> </ul> After a power outage <ul> <li>Sort through your fridge and dispose of any food, drink or medications that may have spoiled.</li> <li>Restock your emergency supplies for the next blackout.</li> <li>Contact your energy provider. Customers in certain states may be eligible for compensation if the outage is unplanned.</li> </ul> With Over60 you can tailor your home insurance to suit various needs and budgets so you can enjoy the peace of mind in knowing that the things you hold near and dear are protected. <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/finance/insurance/home-and-contents/" target="_blank">Find out how you can get up to 30 per cent off^ Over60 Combined Home & Contents Insurance now</a>. <a href="https://oversixty.disconline.com.au/home/new_quote.jsp?hSty=EXOS&cgpCde=00272&hCenCde=10737&LinkId=12071&utm_source=over60&utm_campaign=insurance&utm_medium=in-article-banner-home-contents-3&utm_content=home-contents-insurance" target="_blank"><img src="http://media.oversixty.com.au/images/EditorialAddon/201706_HomeAndContentsInsurance_EditorialAddon_468x60_3.gif" alt="Over60 Home & Contents Insurance - Get a quote!"/></a>

Insurance

Woolies apologises after website failures

Woolworths has apologised after a “major delivery system outage” left customers disgruntled when online shopping orders were cancelled at the last minute. A spokesman for the company confirmed the online ordering system went down on Sunday and continue to experience difficulties until Monday morning. This impacted orders scheduled for delivery on Sunday and Monday afternoon. Some customers took to social media to complain how Woolworths continued to take orders despite the company being notified the system was down. The spokesman said it was “with regret that unfortunately we were unable to process and pick customer orders and had to cancel customer deliveries due in these timeslots and are providing a full refund”. “We have contacted customers by email and SMS directly,” the spokesman said. However, some customers claim the notification came too late. Woolworths said orders scheduled for delivery on Monday morning were distributed to customers “with minimal impact as were orders in WA and Sydney Metro”. CEO & MD of Woolworths Food Group Brad Banducci apologised to customers “unreservedly”. “Sunday and the start of the week are critical shopping days for our customers, including via online, and we are extremely disappointed to have let these customers down and apologise unreservedly,” he said. “As well as a full refund we will be reaching out to each of these customers personally and will be compensating them with a $100 eGift card for the major inconvenience caused.”

Technology

ATO website outages putting tax returns at risk

The Australian Taxation Office should pay small business owners compensation say experts, after the agency’s online services were down for hours yesterday. The failure comes just days after the ATO delivered a report into the technological failing of its websites over the past year, including an outage that downed services for five days. Due to the ongoing problems, businesses are being unfairly hit with infringement notices, warn taxation experts. Co-founder Jamie Davison of the Carbon Group, a technology accounting firm, said the continuing website outages could see Australians to “lose faith in the ATO” with the possibility that many will not want to lodge a tax return online. “If it continues general taxpayers just won’t lodge their tax returns at all,” he said. “It it’s too hard, they just won’t do it. “It wasn’t so frustrating at the beginning but now it’s becoming a regular occurrence.” More than three million Australians lodged their tax returns online last year. Mr Davison said website’s failures had caused “anguish” for small businesses with accountants trying to lodge quarterly business activity statements on time. “They have strict deadlines and the ATO systems issue default penalties and infringements if things aren’t lodged on time,” he said. “They’ll eventually reverse the charges but customers are getting frustrated and they’re getting frustrated with us rather than the ATO. It’s causing a lot of anguish for clients.”

Money & Banking

Major mobile network experiences outage

Vodafone customers across Australia experienced outages yesterday evening, prompting a resurgence of outrage toward the major mobile network. The company spent nearly $1 billion dollars investing in their service since their last string of outages and service disruptions in 2012, which earned them the nick name “Voda-fail”. Customers reported that they have no signal on their devices and that their internet was simply not working at all. Complaints started at around 6pm, and Vodafone finally confirmed the outage at 10:30pm. Services returned at around 2:30am. Vodafone isn’t the only Telco to let down its customers of late, with Telstra suffering a total of seven outages this year. To apologise, they granted their customers free data days. Do you think Vodafone should do the same as Telstra to apologise to its customers? Let us know in the comments below. Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/2016/02/new-phone-batteries-last-for-a-week/">New phone batteries will last for a week without charge</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/2016/01/never-carry-your-phone-in-your-pocket/">You should never carry your phone in your pocket</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/news/news/2015/11/phone-charging-mistakes/">5 charging mistakes that are damaging your mobile</a>

News

Telstra promises free data day after repeated outages

Following yet another day of nationwide interruption to Telstra’s mobile services, the telco is promising a free day of data to make it up to customers. The outage began at 6pm on Thursday, with an estimated 8 million customers – or half of Telstra’s 16 million customers – were affected. According to Telstra CEO Andy Penn, most customers had full service within two hours, but Telstra’s social media were still fielding complaints early this morning. This is the third big outage at Telstra in the last month. In February this year, another outage affected millions of people, while earlier this month around half a million pre-paid customers lost service. Telstra has promised customers a free day of unlimited data on Sunday April 2 to apologise to customers. Related links: <a href="/entertainment/technology/2016/02/speed-up-iphone-ipad-with-simple-trick/">5-second trick to speed up iPhone and iPad</a> <a href="/entertainment/technology/2016/01/myths-about-facebook/">3 myths about Facebook busted</a> <a href="/entertainment/technology/2015/11/new-things-you-can-do-on-ios9-iphone-and-ipad/">10 new things you can do on your iPhone and iPad</a>

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"We apologise sincerely": Cause of major Optus outage revealed

“She wasn’t ready to die”: Son speaks after mum on life support dies during power outage