Google Cloud Accidentally Deletes 5 Billion Pension Fund’s Online Account

A major mistake in setup caused Google Cloud and UniSuper to delete the financial service provider’s private cloud account.

This event has caused many to worry about the security and dependability of cloud services, especially for big financial companies.

The outage started in the blue, and UniSuper’s 620,000 members had no idea what was happening with their retirement funds.

Services didn’t start again until Thursday, and the fund promised its members that investment account amounts would be updated as soon as possible, even though they were still showing numbers from the previous week.

Joint Statement and Apology

According to the Guardian reports, the CEOs of UniSuper and Google Cloud, Peter Chun and Thomas Kurian, apologized for the failure together in a statement, which is not often done.

“This incident is an exceptional and singular occurrence that has not happened with any client of Google Cloud on a global scale before.” This ought not to have occurred. Google Cloud has implemented preventative measures in response to the identified events that precipitated this disruption.

They said that the event was “extremely frustrating and disappointing” for members and caused by a “one-of-a-kind occurrence” in which UniSuper’s Private Cloud services were set up incorrectly, causing the fund’s cloud subscription to be deleted.

“UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription was ultimately terminated due to an unexpected sequence of events that began with an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning,” the two sources stated. “Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has confirmed that the disruption was caused by an unprecedented sequence of events.”