Optus network outage: Telco faces potentially dire consequences after catastrophic crash, a legal expert warns

Optus could face millions of dollars in legal ramifications in the wake of the catastrophic network outage after healthcare was disrupted across the country.

The beleaguered telecoms company has been hit hard a few weeks ago after top bosses, including CEO Kelly Bayer-Rosmarin, led a Senate investigation in addition to the class action lawsuit filed in the Federal Court following a massive data breach last September .

Last week’s outage paralyzed millions of customers, who were left without cell phone or internet reception for hours.

Thousands of businesses were also affected; some lost thousands of dollars when payment systems that relied on Optus connections crashed.

It even affected Victoria’s rail system, with Metro Trains revealing the outage prevented the control center from communicating with trains.

Legal expert Samantha Pillay said the outage has not only exposed healthcare providers to legal action, but Optus is also open to consequences from healthcare providers seeking to recover any losses.

“Healthcare providers have reported that telehealth appointments have been cancelled, on-call midwives and anesthetists were unreachable and triple-0 emergency call services were unavailable from landlines,” said Ms Pillay, insurance and healthcare director at law firm Barry Nilsson.

‘The impact of these types of events could be much greater in the future as healthcare increasingly moves online to make it more accessible to rural and regional communities.’

Ramsay Health Care reported that phone services were knocked out across the country during the national outage.

In South Australia, the Department of Health said hospital telephone exchanges had been affected.

Other hospitals in Melbourne – including Northern Hospital Epping, Broadmeadows Hospital, Bundoora Centre, Craigieburn Centre, Kilmore District Hospital and Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) – also had their phone lines affected.

Ms Pillay said new technologies in healthcare allow doctors to monitor patients’ vital signs and track important factors such as blood pressure and glucose.

They are automatically alerted when a patient’s condition worsens.

Ms Pillay said the failure of these technologies due to network disruptions such as Optus’s could lead to “serious or even catastrophic harm” to patients, especially in regional or rural communities.

“Healthcare providers, on the one hand, can take action to recover losses incurred by their businesses,” she said.

‘On the other hand, they may have to deal with claims from patients who suffered damage as a result of the event.

‘Even with a federal government investigation and an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation into the Optus outage, this type of ‘black swan’ event is likely to continue to occur as new technologies develop and our dependence on them increases .

‘In the not-too-distant future, telesurgery, aided by next-generation 5G, could become a reality in Australia.

“But what happens when a surgeon thousands of miles away, possibly in another country, is taken out of a real-time remote operating room due to a telecommunications failure?”

On Monday, Optus revealed the national outage had been caused due to changes in ‘routing information’ after a software upgrade by the telecom provider.

About 10.2 million customers had no internet or mobile access for about 13.5 hours last Wednesday.

Services were lost around 4:05 a.m. and were not fully restored until 5:35 p.m.

In a statement, Optus said its network received “changes to routing information from an international peering network following a routine software upgrade.”

“These changes to routing information propagated through multiple layers in our network and exceeded preset security levels on key routers that could not handle them,” their statement said.

‘This resulted in those routers disconnecting from the Optus IP Core network to protect themselves.’

Optus said the restoration required reconnecting or restarting routers in a number of locations across Australia.

“This is why the recovery was gradual throughout the afternoon,” their statement said.

Optus has since apologized to customers and is offering eligible postpaid customers an additional 200GB of data as a compensatory offer.

The telco’s turbulent week has only worsened as the chaotic outage is triggered by a Senate inquiry led by Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young.

Optus vice-president of regulatory and public affairs Andrew Sheridan said the company would cooperate with any proposed reviews by the Australian Federal Communications Department and the ACMA into the network outage.

“As a provider of critical infrastructure, we understand the importance of ensuring continuity of service and any lessons learned are likely to be useful to both Optus and others in our industry,” he said in a statement.

The Australian Business Network reports Optus could be forced to pay up to $400 million in compensation if it strikes a deal with the regulator.

In addition, thousands of customers have joined a class action lawsuit against the telco after their personal data was hacked in 2022.

Up to nine million Aussies were affected by the data breach, with their names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses and, for some customers, addresses and ID document numbers such as a driver’s license or passport number exposed.

A hacker believed to be behind the attack demanded a ransom of $1.5 million on a forum for the return of the data.

But bizarrely, the post was deleted and the author apologized for his actions.

Slater and Gordon’s class action lawsuit alleges that Optus failed to “protect, or take reasonable steps to protect, the personal information of its current and former customers.”

“The type of information that was made accessible put affected customers at greater risk of being defrauded and having their identity stolen, and Optus should have taken adequate measures to prevent that,” said Ben Hardwick, leader of the class actions practice.

‘The data breach may also have compromised the safety of many particularly vulnerable groups of Optus customers, such as victims of domestic abuse, stalking and other crimes, as well as those working in frontline professions including defense and police. .’

An Optus spokeswoman said: ‘As the matters are currently before the courts, we will not be commenting at this time.’