"Technicians working on a firewall upgrade made at least ten mistakes, contributing to two deaths, according to a report on a September incident that saw Australian telco Optus unable to route calls to emergency services. As The Register reported at the time, Australia's equivalent of the USA's 911 and the UK's 999 and 112 emergency contact number is 000 - Triple Zero - and local law requires all telcos to route emergency calls to that number."
"Staff later required changes that meant devices would be isolated and a gateway locked, a decision that meant traffic would not be redirected. Optus had not used that procedure on six previous firewall upgrades. Nokia, meanwhile, chose to use a Method of Procedure from 2022 it did not employ on past upgrades and which was the wrong one for the job."
Technicians made at least ten mistakes during a firewall upgrade that caused emergency routing failures. Optus could not route some customers' calls to 000 for 14 hours and learned only after customers complained. 455 emergency calls failed and two callers died. Optus planned 18 firewall upgrades, executed 15 without incident, and on the 16th issued incorrect instructions to provider Nokia. Some engineers missed meetings and staff implemented changes that isolated devices and locked a gateway, preventing traffic redirection. Nokia used the wrong 2022 Method of Procedure and misclassified the job as non-impacting. Optus classified the job as urgent and bypassed an engineering review.
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