Google Cloud accidentally deletes cutomer’s online account due to ‘unprecedented misconfiguration’

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/09/unisuper-google-cloud-issue-account-access

77 points · 10 comments · view on lemmy.world

10 Comments

shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol · 27 pts · 2y (2 replies)

The customer was UniSuper, a $125B Superfund. It was not the confused Grandma in the thumbnail.

catalyst@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 2y

lol I was scratching my head at that choice as well.

subtext@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y

I think maybe the grandma in the picture is supposed to represent one of the pensioners with an account at UniSuper who couldn’t access their account for a week due to the outage

tsonfeir@lemm.ee · 26 pts · 2y (1 reply)

This is the kind of apology that more company should be releasing. The kind that admit fault entirely, and beg you not to leave. And since this was an unprecedented event, it’s the first time Google has ever apologized in this manner

shasta@lemm.ee · 13 pts · 2y

They only apologized because the customer they risk losing controls billions of dollars in assets

bfg9k@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 2y

I just wonder how the hell you manage to 'accidentally' delete an entire tenant lol, it's not an easy thing to do even normally

hitmyspot@aussie.zone · 11 pts · 2y (2 replies)

It just goes to show that depending on one provider is poor. Here they did the tight thing and had backups with a different provider, despite having geographic redundancies with google cloud.

They say it was a one of a kind misconfiguration but I havnt seen anywhere what that was. Could it be as simple as a payment error and enaiks going to the wrong address?

jchaven@social.sdf.org · 3 pts · 2y (1 reply)

@hitmyspot @canpolat

This will likely hit UniSuper's bottom-line. I just know that in an effort to reduce costs and save the company they will layoff alot of people including the team that pushed for 3rd-party backups. The same team that is saving their ass right now.

hitmyspot@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 2y

I doubt it. This Those was just the customer facing portal, not the actual investments. The misconfiguration has already been blamed and if they are calling it unique, they will likely see it as blameless or at least low responsibility rather than the lesson that proper configuration is required.

UFODivebomb@programming.dev · 2 pts · 2y

"account being deleted, something that had never happened to Google Cloud before."

10$ says this has happened before but to a tiny customer who couldn't get google to care.