Telstra outage caused by system reset to 2006

A critical national Telstra outage last week, which disrupted emergency services and businesses, was triggered by a maintenance procedure that inadvertently sent system clocks back two decades. Telstra revealed in a submission to a Senate inquiry that the incident occurred after a team followed documented procedures, but an underlying software configuration caused a key device's date to reset to 2006 upon restart.

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The NTP server in Exhibition St had an underlying software configuration, such that when the device restarted, it reset the date to 2006.

The telco explained that this happened because of an intentional design change made to fix an earlier fault, which had not been properly documented. Consequently, the maintenance team was unaware of how the device would behave when restarted, and a crucial software update had also not been applied. Telstra stated that if the software update had been completed or the design change properly documented, the outage might have been avoided.

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We take trust in Triple Zero extremely seriously.

Telstra's submission acknowledged the severity of the incident, admitting that if maintenance work can cause such widespread disruption, their controls were insufficient. Chief executive Vicki Brady has apologized for the failure to ensure calls to Triple Zero (000) were immediately answered and transferred. The company is now facing potential millions in fines and hundreds of millions in compensation claims as it reviews the incident to improve its controls and prevent future occurrences.

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If maintenance work can trigger this kind of outage, it suggests our controls were not good enough.