By Stuart Condie
SYDNEY--Singapore Telecommunications-owned Optus has no evidence that a cyberattack was to blame for a network outage affecting millions of customers including emergency services, hospitals and transport systems.
The cause of Wednesday's outage at Australia's second-largest mobile operator, which in 2022 was hit by a cyberattack in which customer details were stolen, had yet to be identified more than seven hours after customers first complained of problems. There was no sign of an attack and software issues were highly unlikely, Optus Chief Executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said.
"Our systems are actually very stable. This is a very rare occurrence and when I have more information about the root cause I will be the first to let our customers know," Rosmarin told a local radio station.
Customers began reporting problems with their Optus services shortly before dawn on Australia's east coast. Customers cannot call triple zero--Australia's equivalent of 911--from Optus-operated landlines. Calls to emergency services from Optus mobiles will still connect, Rosmarin said.
Australia's largest private-hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, was among the businesses hit by the outage. Ramsay, which operates more than 70 hospitals, clinics and surgical centers across the country, used its Facebook accounts to direct patient inquiries to its hospitals' websites.
Trains across Melbourne, Australia's second-most populous city, experienced major delays, the service operator said. Victoria state's transport department said that its call center went offline due to the outage.
The Australian government's communications minister said that Optus needed to improve communication with customers, many of whom would be experiencing anxiety or financial loss due to the outage. The minister, Michelle Rowland, said that her understanding was that the fault was deep in the core of Optus's operations.
It was too early to discuss what financial reparations Optus might make, Rowland told a media conference. Optus already faces a class action alleging that it failed to protect customers' personal information in the September 2022 attack in which details of more than 10,000 customers were stolen.
Rowland said the outage highlighted the critical nature of communications infrastructure, which is a longstanding issue in Australia. In 2018, Australia banned 5G technology by China's Huawei from the country's mobile network over security concerns.
"It does underscore how essential telecommunications are to our everyday lives," Rowland said Wednesday.
The government-owned National Broadband Network, which sells wholesale access to retailers including Optus for resale to consumers, was operating correctly, Rowland added.
Optus had 10.4 million mobile customers as of March 31, according to Singtel's most recent annual report. ASX-listed Telstra has more than 22 million mobile subscribers and TPG Telecom about 5.3 million.
Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 07, 2023 19:58 ET (00:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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