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Dear colleagues,

Most of you will be aware that on Friday 16 May the ANU experienced a widespread IT outage that impacted WiFi services and key systems and software applications across most of the day. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide some clarity on what occurred and to also recognise the efforts of everyone involved who ensured the continued operation of the University.

Such an event understandably creates concern within our community and I can confirm for you that the outage was caused by an IT infrastructure failure. Whilst the full engineering report is still being finalised, ITS and ISO staff continue working to ensure our systems are reliable and resilient. I would like to sincerely thank them for their dedication and tireless round-the-clock efforts in diagnosing this issue and restoring services. Their skilled response was instrumental in minimising the disruption.

I also want to acknowledge the rapid and effective contributions of other teams across the University, including ANU Security staff, who helped to manage security impacts, maintain smooth operations and ensured the safety of our campus and our people, and the Critical Incident Management Team that did a great job in co-ordinating the campus wide response. Across local areas, I know many of you implemented contingency plans and developed creative workarounds to keep things running. These efforts do not go unnoticed.

While no one wants an incident like this to occur, the way our staff came together in response shows ANU at its very best – collaborative, committed and resilient. Thank you all.

Warm regards,

Jonathan Churchill