Optus CEO Resigns After Nationwide Outage Left Millions Without Mobile and Internet Services (abc.net.au) 37
Earlier this month, the entire Optus mobile network went offline nationwide following a "routine software upgrade." According to Reuters, "More than 10 million Australians were hit by the 12-hour network blackout [...], triggering fury and frustration among customers and raising wider concerns about the telecommunications infrastructure." Now, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has resigned in the wake of the outage. From the report: She said it "had been an honour to serve" but that "now was an appropriate time to step down." During Friday's Senate hearing into the outage, Ms Bayer Rosmarin rebuffed suggestions she was under pressure to step down. "On Friday, I had the opportunity to appear before the Senate to expand on the cause of the network outage and how Optus recovered and responded," she said in a statement on Monday. "I was also able to communicate Optus's commitment to restore trust and continue to serve customers. Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward."
Ms Bayer Rosmarin will be replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter. Yuen Kuan Moon, the chief executive of Optus's Singaporean parent company Singtel Group, said the company understood her decision to resign. Mr Yuen said Singtel recognised "the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as the team works through the impact and consequences of the recent outage and continues to improve." He said Optus's priority was about "setting on a path of renewal for the benefit of the community and customers." Singtel said Optus had also created a new chief operating officer position, which would be carried out by former Optus Business Managing Director Peter Kaliaropoulos.
Ms Bayer Rosmarin will be replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter. Yuen Kuan Moon, the chief executive of Optus's Singaporean parent company Singtel Group, said the company understood her decision to resign. Mr Yuen said Singtel recognised "the need for Optus to regain customer trust and confidence as the team works through the impact and consequences of the recent outage and continues to improve." He said Optus's priority was about "setting on a path of renewal for the benefit of the community and customers." Singtel said Optus had also created a new chief operating officer position, which would be carried out by former Optus Business Managing Director Peter Kaliaropoulos.
Surprising thereâ(TM)s no local board (Score:1)
You have to wonder about the corporate structure. Only just made a coo.
Lack of investment in robust systems will catch up with you eventually. Have to wonder if the warnings of the guys in the trenches were ignored for years that things were operating with the sword of Damocles.
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You have to wonder about the corporate structure. Only just made a coo.
Lack of investment in robust systems will catch up with you eventually. Have to wonder if the warnings of the guys in the trenches were ignored for years that things were operating with the sword of Damocles.
No worse than Ercot in Texas. How many years had they been told they needed to upgrade their systems to prevent outages in cold and hot weather? At least in Australia no one died (that we know of) by the outage, unlike in Texas where hundreds froze to death [statesman.com] or otherwise died.
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I am really trying to see the link between this an Texas...
Did the summary leave off an extermely rare weather related event to cause this in Austrilia?
Was there a risk of people freezing to death due to no internet?
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Not specifically freezing to death, but the outage affected emergency response systems like the Australian equivalent of 911 and 112. I am unsure what number exactly Australians have to dial.
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Not specifically freezing to death, but the outage affected emergency response systems like the Australian equivalent of 911 and 112. I am unsure what number exactly Australians have to dial.
1 for poison snakes, 2 for poison spiders, 3 for poison plants, 4 for poison fish, 5 for poison cephalopods, 6 for poison bugs, 7 for poison lizards, 8 for poison...
Gladys Berejiklian (Score:3)
Yeah, that's what we need - a politician found to be corrupt, who sent Australia and New Zealand into lockdowns because she wouldn't lockdown Sydney when things were getting out of control.
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"The disease spread because the disease was not stopped from spreading? That seems rather contradictory."
That's you. That's what you sound like.
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She sent Australia into lockdown by not locking down? That seems rather contradictory.
What they mean is, covid was rapidly spreading in Sydney and rather than following medical advice and locking things down, mandating mask wearing, social distancing, etc, the politician stood by and did nothing. Then, once they couldn't hide the true extent [worldometers.info] of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, the politician finally did something and locked down the entire country. Had they "quarantined [snopes.com]" Sydney, the rest of the country might not have had to lockdown.*
* Transmission would depend on how many people
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" local infections would come from those coming into the country which is far easier to control."
It was shown that people incubate the infection and start spreading it before they show any signs of infection themselves. They only way you can actually control it at the border is to not let anyone come in. Is this actually feasible? You are killing tourism and destroying livelihoods for something that is no more lethal than the flu, once you strip back all th
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TLDR; You can't protect a fortress when traitors open the gates in the dead of night...
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they wanted to let the old folks die
That's a bold claim stating that was the goal. What do you have to back up that this was the motivation? Do you think that was the motiovation in other places, like New York?
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It was a shambles though and through and in my view amounted to dangerou
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Furniture removal guys driving 700km from Sydney to Melbourne.
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Victoria literally crushed the initial wave, then crushed Delta twice. TWICE. We were out of lockdown. But Berejiklian refused to lockdown Sydney when it becamme clear that they lost control of tracing, leading to the the final outbreak in Victoria. They even managed to cause an outbreak in New Zealand. It's all been covered in the news.
As for Victoria's borders closing off, that was because Berejiklian refused to lock Sydney down. Be
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As opposed to Chairman Dan who had coppers kicking front doors in because someone didn't agree with him.
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Stepping down with a golden parachute (Score:2)
keeping hold of all her stock options and other perks that come with the job of CEO.
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No one takes my money off me when I resign either. She stepped down, she wasn't fired by the board (though arguably there was grounds for that).
route information - cause (Score:3)
upstream providers of which optus has singtel and china mobile sent bogus routes
they didnt validate it correctly and it cascaded the router tables
so basically fail Optus
deploy IPv6 throughout network and use RPKI
https://radar.cloudflare.com/as4804?dateStart=2023-11-07&dateEnd=2023-11-07
SingTel transit routes are unsafe since its not signing or filtering
this is what happens when you run a company with consultants...
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> this is what happens when you run a company with consultants...
It depends on the consultants you get. There are plenty of well known, well respected, network operating consultants in Sydney who learnt BGP in the late 90's and know the pain it can cause if it's not configured correctly when you're a small network connected to a big network.
All network administrators get lazy and all network administrators fuck up occasionally. The good ones suffer from enough oversight and management that they're forced
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Consultants tend to use the cheapest tool for the job: It's the wrong tool or, one they constructed in 5 minutes without testing or peer-review.
Many "business" consultants haven't learnt new tools or processes over the last 5 years: This applies doubly to IT, where there isn't a regulatory body to advertise which processes have changed. The result is one-size-fits-all answers and a "nuke everything" response to the problems they don't recognize.
The most common task for consultants is telling the boss
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You're only covering half the story. Singtel *IS* Optus. That is their parent company. There's reason to have some trust in your own company's published information.
Also she didn't just step down because of this, she was pressured to do so because she's preceded over several disasters including a large security breach a year ago. This isn't consultants, this is outright management incompetence.
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*presided
C-suite goals and network goals don't align (Score:2)
This mindset
Only half the story (Score:3)
Sure she may have resigned now after the large Optus outage, but the reason for resigning is a multitude of failings over her tenure. We've covered several here.
Arguably she should have been shown the door after their massive hack last year https://it.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
Side note Optus had another outage yesterday, though isolated to west Melbourne, just a small city of 5 million people.
scapegoat quitting (Score:2)
Prepare for grift and graft (Score:2)
When the CFO acts as CEO, some bad stupid shit is always coming.
CFOs don't have what it takes to be CEOs. If they did, they'd have been CEOs already.
They know how to pinch pennies, not how to spend money developing business. Their whole mindset is the opposite of what a business needs.
What should the CEO do during such an outage? (Score:2)
Bring the people doing the real work pizza - and lots of it. Now if she failed to ensure that happened, clearly she ought to go. She had only one job ;)
Executive shuffle (Score:1)