Broadband News
Wed, 21st Oct 2026
Government scrambles to fix websites after AI discovers flaw could affect 70% of the internet
A report from a cybersecurity firm estimated that the software flaw had existed undetected for more than a decade, but AI tools helped quickly identify a fix for them.
Source: SMH
Two critical PHP flaws put the web on alert as emergency patches arrive
Organisations are scrambling to protect themselves following the disclosure of two critical vulnerabilities in commonly used code that powers much of the internet. The flaws discovered in the PHP scripting language could allow attackers to perform unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE).
Source: ARN
Critical flaws strike PHP as disclosure embargo is broken
The maintainers of the PHP general purpose scripting language are telling users to update their systems with patches for two critical vulnerabilities.
Source: iTnews Australia
Cloudflare warns fixing botched eMudhra certs goes beyond browsers
Cloudflare has warned that customers may need to act on their own servers after weak keys in eight eMudhra intermediate certificates left them open to forgery.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 20th Oct 2026
NextDC’s M3 grid expansion delayed due to ‘community and stakeholder opposition’
Work on NextDC’s Melbourne M3 data centre has been delayed because of electricity network distributor Jemena partially suspending construction work due to “community and stakeholder opposition”.
Source: ARN
Optus chasing "near real-time" data as regulatory pressure looms
Optus has moved to pull information from legacy customer-facing applications stored in an Oracle database faster to help it meet regulatory and compliance obligations.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 19th Oct 2026
SUBCO brings in joint CIO and CISO
SUBCO has appointed Andrew Bacon as its joint chief information officer and chief information security officer.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 16th Oct 2026
Telstra ends Australia's long RCS wait: Android from 16 November, iPhone after December's iOS update
Australia's biggest telco has finally put dates on the calendar. Telstra will start switching on RCS messaging for Android customers from 16 November, with iPhone owners to follow once Apple delivers its December iOS update, and the whole rollout is due to be finished by the end of 2026.
Source: iTWire
Australian gov, media networks reached by Israeli firm’s spy ads
The national nuclear science agency, critical infrastructure operators and Australian government networks were among those reached by online ads that researchers say an Israeli company used to track devices and help plant spyware.
Source: iTnews Australia
Nokia launches flexible 50G/25G/10GPON solution to accelerate AI-ready fiber broadband
Nokia recently announced a new 50G/25G/10G/GPON line card that gives operators the flexibility to evolve their fiber network at their own pace and be ready for the demands of the AI era.
Source: iTWire
Thu, 15th Oct 2026
TPG runs 5G network slicing trial for eftpos payments
TPG Telecom has trialled 5G network slicing at the Royal Adelaide Show, using it to prioritise digital payment processing traffic.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 13th Oct 2026
‘Didn’t foot the bill’: Telstra outage cost the economy half a billion dollars, modelling finds
Households and small businesses carried the cost of Telstra’s July outage, consumer advocates say, as the Senate debates mobile reliability laws this week.
Source: SMH
Wed, 30th Sep 2026
Apple issues urgent iOS patch as it navigates the spyware arms race
If you’ve not done so recently, you should update your Apple systems now as the company continues to fight sophisticated, targeted hacks. The latest patch protects against what the company called “an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.”
Source: Computerworld
Amaysim slugged with $138,600 penalty for unverified number ports
Mobile provider Amaysim has paid a $138,600 infringement notice and entered an enforceable undertaking after the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found the telco ported 13 mobile numbers without identity checks designed to stop them being hijacked.
Source: iTnews Australia
Home Affairs orders gov-wide 'legacy' system stocktake within six months
Home Affairs has ordered all federal departments and agencies to “conduct a legacy technology stocktake” within six months, after an AI agent exposed configuration weaknesses in an older data portal.
Source: iTnews Australia
Tue, 29th Sep 2026
Vodafone becomes Australia's first telco to launch a 48-month mobile payment plan as Australians hold onto phones for longer
Vodafone is Australia’s first telco to launch a 48-month, interest-free mobile device payment plan, giving customers greater choice and flexibility in how they pay for their next phone.
Source: iTWire
OpenAI agent accessed "credentials" via Medicare data portal
OpenAI has admitted the model that gained non-public access to a Medicare statistics portal also ran commands and retrieved credentials, going beyond its earlier account that only aggregate health statistics and internal file names were accessed.
Source: iTnews Australia
‘Too much heat’: How residents beat a $1.2b data centre
Lane Cove residents are planning a street party. The rest of the data centre industry has a problem.
Source: SMH
Telstra payphone granted heritage status
A Telstra payphone on the NSW south coast has earned heritage listing “on social and historical grounds” for the role it played in connecting the area to the outside world during a major bushfire.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 28th Sep 2026
Australia Post signs three-year deal with Telstra
Australia Post has signed a three-year, “multimillion-dollar” agreement with Telstra for connectivity for its almost 4000 locations.
Source: iTnews Australia
AusPost calls on Telstra for three-year connectivity agreement
Telstra has secured a multimillion-dollar, three-year delivery agreement with Australia Post to bolster the postal service provider’s digital infrastructure for close to 4,000 locations across the country.
Source: ARN
Sun, 27th Sep 2026
OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs called to appear at Australian AI probe
The CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic have been called to appear at an Australian senate inquiry on AI, the head of the probe said on Sunday, days after the revelation that a rogue OpenAI bot had accessed health system statistics.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 25th Sep 2026
Meta floats project to lay first petabit submarine fiberoptic cable
The 7,000 km (4,350 mile) cable, called Petal, will connect the US and France. Meta is partnering with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries to build it, and working with French telecommunications company Orange to coordinate the landing of the cable on the French coast.
Source: Computerworld
Thu, 24th Sep 2026
Vocus adds second project to its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform
Vocus will look to implement long-haul fibre route from Brisbane to Darwin as the second project in its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform (ADIP).
Source: ARN
Tue, 22nd Sep 2026
Telstra deploys AI agent to help it meet customer service guarantee
Telstra is using AI agents powered by Salesforce to assist it in meeting its customer service guarantee obligations, with additional use cases planned.
Source: iTnews Australia
Mon, 21st Sep 2026
‘I’d love to see more of it’: Telstra backs data centre boom amid backlash
The telco owns the cable that would connect new AI infrastructure and says Australia is ideal for an accelerated development despite opposition.
Source: SMH
Aussie mobile telcos face 'automatic' customer compensation for outages
Australian telcos should have to meet mandatory reliability and performance standards and “automatically” compensate customers impacted by outages, a major review has recommended.
Source: iTnews Australia
Sun, 13th Sep 2026
Tech leaders call for urgent global slowdown on AI
Tech leaders are calling for an urgent global slowdown on artificial intelligence and warning self-training AI is evolving faster than safety guard rails can handle.
Source: SMH
Optus outage attributed to hardware failure at exchange
A hardware failure at an Optus exchange in Victoria is being blamed for an Optus voice outage on Friday that triggered welfare checks by authorities in three states.
Source: iTnews Australia
Fri, 11th Sep 2026
Anthropic finds evidence of a fourth AI escaping from containment
Anthropic has owned up to a fourth security incident involving its AI model, Claude, escaping onto the open internet and attacking other organizations during a test of cybersecurity abilities on what was believed to be a closed system.
Source: Computerworld