“We let you down, and for that, I am deeply sorry,” a red-faced Optus CEO Kelly Rosmarin tells the Australian parliament. Business owners are still hot under the color after an internet outage left 10 million of its telecoms customers without service for 12 hours. The “technical glitch” is the worst in the country’s history.
Businesses are still counting the cost of the impact on operations – losing out on a full day’s trade more than a week ago. Customers were unable to make electronic payments, hitting the hospitality industry hard.
Optus battled to find the problem for nearly half the day, resulting in the company switching off the entire system.
Scrutinizing CEO’s leadership
Rosmarin sidestepped questions about her future as the leader of the country’s second-largest telecommunications company. AFP reports that she says: “My focus is on the team, the community. My focus is not on myself.
It’s reported that Rosmarin could leave the company early next week. However, Rosmarin insists that she is unaware of any media reports speculating on her future. She claims she’s directed all her focus on preparing for her Senate hearing.
She has been at Optus for nearly five years and spent the last three years as CEO.
In 2022, under her leadership, the company suffered a significant cyber-attack. Millions of customers’ data were exposed. The company recruited consultancy firm Deloitte to conduct a forensic assessment into the cause of the cyber attack. However, that report was kept under wraps. A court has now ruled that that report must be made public to help other companies prevent similar attacks.
What went wrong
Optus told parliament that the routers disconnected without any human instruction. This was a result of an overload during a scheduled software upgrade.
Rosmarin maintains that the online disaster was not anticipated: “The reality is that our network should have coped with this change, but on this occasion, it did not.
About the author
Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.
