Optus CEO Stephen Rue has fronted the media again today in what could become like COVID Daily briefings as the company scrambles to uncover what caused the catastrophic failure of their systems which resulted in the deaths of three Australians on Thursday, and there’s now a fourth death that may be linked to the outage.

Mr Rue confirmed the issue was caused by a routine system upgrade to a Firewall, and that other than those details the technical failures are subject to an ongoing investigation.

It was also confirmed that no Optus manager, Mr Rue included had yet spoken to the families of those who passed.

We can now confirm that the outage lasted almost 14 hours, with the System update happening at 12.30am on Thursday, and not being reversed until close to 2pm that afternoon.

The change to fix the system came after a customer contacted Optus directly at 1.30pm on Thursday having failed to get through to Triple-Zero.

Additionally, the company was made away by South Australian Police at 1.50pm that same day. It was at this time the company restored the Triple-Zero services.

When the update was applied after midnight, all preliminary testing and monitoring indicated no issues, most likely because the standard Optus Mobile network was able to make and take calls, just not to Triple Zero.

There were no alarms in the Optus Network monitoring systems to indicate calls were not connecting.

Welfare checks on the lines that had attempted triple-zero calls began on Thursday evening, and through Friday.

Tragically, it also appears two callers contacted Optus earlier on Thursday, with the first around 9am – this call was not flagged with any urgency or internal system. The person who made that call has since referred their case to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman – most likely after the Optus announcement yesterday.

Optus this afternoon, two hours after the CEO’s media conference said “We are saddened to learn of a new fatality in Western Australia which appears to have occurred during the outage period, and we have been advised by WA Police that they believe the individual likely attempted to contact triple zero for assistance. We will continue to work with WA Police and other agencies to understand more of what has occurred.“

CEO Stephen Rue said “I am deeply saddened by this further news and extend my heartfelt condolences to the person’s family and friends.

As stated earlier today I have asked for a full review into the circumstances relating to the failed network upgrade and impact on the triple zero network. I will also be working with my Board and executive team to enable a full independent review of the entire incident including all the impacts and related information. This includes working closely with relevant agencies to establish the full facts.”

Stephen Rue has confirmed that an independent third party will be appointed to conduct a complete investigation into the matter, and that the company will fully co-operate with all investigations from Governments and regulators