Australia says IBM settles over online census failure

[webfact]

Australia says IBM settles over online census failure 
ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press

 

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Global technology giant IBM carried most of the blame for the crash of Australia's online census three months ago and had compensated the government for the financial cost of the debacle, the prime minister said on Friday.

 

Australia's first attempt to conduct a census online shut down for 43 hours in August after the website failed to cope with routine denial-of-service attacks.

 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said IBM, the Australian Bureau of Statistic's head contractor, had reached a "very substantial" confidential settlement with the government over the failure that "absolutely" covered costs.

 

"It would not be an exaggeration to say that we had a collective sense of humor failure about IBM's performance here and they have 'fessed up (confessed), they've paid up and we're going to learn the lessons of this incident very diligently," Turnbull told Melbourne Radio 3AW.

 

"Overwhelming the failure was IBM's," he said.

 

IBM Australia said on Friday the company had no further comment to add to a submission it made to a Senate inquiry last month into the failure.

 

IBM Australia Managing Director Kerry Purcell told that inquiry he apologized for the inconvenience and took full responsibility for the failure. He blamed a router failure.

 

Australian Bureau of Statistics boss David Kalisch told the same inquiry that the failure had cost taxpayers 30 million Australian dollars ($22 million).

 

A report on the failure published on Thursday by Alastair MacGibbon, special adviser to the prime minister on cybersecurity, described the website's denial-of-service protections as "inadequate."

 

The bureau's "close and trusting relationship" with IBM as a long-term contractor resulted in insufficient independent verification and oversight of critical aspects of the website, the report said.

 

IBM had been awarded AU$1.55 billion in Australian government contracts since 2013 and the census website contract had been worth AU$9.6 million.

 

MacGibbon recommended the government establish a "Cyber Boot Camp" where senior bureaucrats could learn cybersecurity fundamentals.

 

He found that no other information technology failure had done more damage to public confidence in the government's ability to deliver.

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-11-25

[lvr181]

And did IBM pay for failure of Queensland Health system?

[Dumbastheycome]

Did  this  compensation cover the  value of the "incredibly  important information "  gleaned and selectively  onsold? Maybe a win/win situation  for  Australians for the  moment.  Zero cost to the taxpayer and   zero valid comprehensive  invasion of privacy.

[Torrens54]

Hmm and what do those initials represent?

 

Perhaps: Incompetent, Bumbling, Morons ? 

[simple1]

8 hours ago, lvr181 said:

And did IBM pay for failure of Queensland Health system?

 

No - QLG Govt stuffed up the project scoping and management. Having worked in Govt sales for IBM and other IT vendors, I believe the same occurred with ABS as a router failed and ABS panicked. IBM sells about $1.5 billion p.a. to Federal government, I would bet their arm was twisted in order to keep relationships in place.

[Prbkk]

It's good that they paid up; too many govts around the world , including Australia are fearful of companies like IBM....even worse though is the power of the big 3 auditing firms ( used to be 5 but a couple were swallowed up before they went belly up). 

Taxpayers around the world pay scandalously high fees for reports, analysis, comment, audit from these leeches...but the report data and much of the commentary is provided by overpaid ,uppity juniors most of whom wouldn't know shit from clay.

[lvr181]

10 hours ago, simple1 said:

 

No - QLG Govt stuffed up the project scoping and management. Having worked in Govt sales for IBM and other IT vendors, I believe the same occurred with ABS as a router failed and ABS panicked. IBM sells about $1.5 billion p.a. to Federal government, I would bet their arm was twisted in order to keep relationships in place.

A router fails and it is ABS fault? An expected comment by an ex IBM employee. Alternate arrangements not made (or suggested by IBM) to avoid possible problems? Take the money and run!  

[simple1]

7 minutes ago, lvr181 said:

A router fails and it is ABS fault? An expected comment by an ex IBM employee. Alternate arrangements not made (or suggested by IBM) to avoid possible problems? Take the money and run!  

 

Did not claim the router failure was the fault of ABS, but they could have rebooted and been back online quickly, but ABS staff panicked & closed down the site for 48 hours. BTW Govt are notorious for penny pinching on  infrastructure and under sizing demand, then blame the vendor

 

In my 30 years within the IT industry never heard of an instance where IBM 'took the money & ran' that's why many organisations contract with IBM, especially Govt and large corporations.

[lvr181]

1 minute ago, simple1 said:

 

Did not claim the router failure was the fault of ABS, but they could have rebooted and been back online quickly, but ABS staff panicked & closed down the site for 48 hours. BTW Govt are notorious for penny pinching on  infrastructure and under sizing demand, then blame the vendor

 

In my 30 years within the IT industry never heard of an instance where IBM 'took the money & ran' that's why many organisations contract with IBM, especially Govt and large corporations.