Nationwide Telstra outage disrupts thousands, raises questions of foreign launched cyberattack

A nationwide Telstra outage that disrupted service for thousands of customers remains under investigation, with the company refusing to rule out human error or a cyberattack as the cause.

Telstra acting chief executive Michael Ackland says the telco “doesn’t know the root cause” and is working with the government and regulators to investigate the impact of the outage.

Mr Ackland apologised for disruptions and explained that the issue had so far been linked to an error with time-synchronisation of servers within Telstra-owned data centres in Melbourne and Sydney.

Speaking in Melbourne on Wednesday, Mr Ackland couldn’t rule out a cyberattack or a human error behind the outage as the investigation continued.

“We have nothing to indicate malicious activity, and we’ve been in contact with all regulators and government agencies to that effect,” he said.

“But we continue to investigate, we continue to remain curious and explore every avenue we have.

“We do not know what the root cause was, and I’d rather let the investigations play out and update you with what we know.”

He had faced multiple questions about foul play after One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce suggested in a Sky News interview that China could be behind the disruptions.

It comes after China launched a sea-based missile in the South Pacific after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed a pact with Fiji.

“I don’t want to be paranoid or a conspiracy theorist but we know there is the capacity for people to affect, for China to affect that sort of software and that sort of network,” he said.

“I think it’s an issue that needs to be cleared up.”

Deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume on Wednesday stressed it was important to wait for further explanation from Telstra before speculating on the cause.

She added that it was a reminder Australia needed for a resilient telecommunications system.

In his annual threat assessment this year, Australia’s spy chief Mike Burgess had warned that the country’s telecoms network and key infrastructure were at risk of foreign sabotage.

“When Australian critical infrastructure is disrupted, we will be shocked – but we should not be surprised,” he had said last month.

Mr Ackland vowed that Telstra was taking the incident “very, very seriously” and understood the importance of investing in “resilience and cybersecurity”.

“I believe Australia can absolutely have faith in its biggest Telco, and that is Telstra,” he said.

“We take these outages very, very seriously.

“Our investment in resilience, cybersecurity and redundancy in our network.

“It’s significant but it is a big and complex network, and from time to time, issues do occur.”

Mr Ackland said the time synchronisation was important to authenticate actions in the network, so vital for operation of both data and voice services.

The outage has disrupted mobile, internet, and transport services for thousands of customers, disabling some emergency calls and forcing train suspensions across Victoria and New South Wales due to a radio network fault.

As reports peaked over 7500 on Down Detector, frustrated customers gathered outside Sydney Telstra stores for updates.

“It has been intermittent but it has been national, so it doesn’t matter where you’re located,” Mr Ackland said.

“Triple zero calls follow different settings in our network, therefore they were not impacted in the same way.

“We have seen a small number of reports that we are investigating.

“And as part of our standard process, which has been operating through the night and through this morning, we conduct welfare checks, and any call to triple zero fails.

“We can monitor all calls that are attempted and failing, and we have been conducting welfare checks on those.

“We’ve been doing this.”

“We don’t believe this issue has impacted triple zero in the same way as other calls.”