Internet collapse affecting Govt computers ‘may have been sabotage’, No.6 says

A total internet outage that affected the Gibraltar Government’s IT infrastructure on Monday may have been “deliberate sabotage”, No.6 Convent Place said, adding the matter would be reported to the Royal Gibraltar Police.

The problem arose just after 5pm on Monday and meant government desktop computers were unable to access email or internet services.

Other services including the Gibraltar Parliament’s livestream were also hit, meaning viewers were unable to follow an important debate on the parliament’s website.

The problems persisted into Tuesday, with some computers still without internet access over 24 hours after the issue was first detected.

“This potentially deliberate and dangerous act of sabotage has affected every public service department, including the Royal Gibraltar Police, the Department for Social Security, Housing and the Care Agency,” No.6 Convent Place said in a statement.

“It has disrupted the communication of vulnerable citizens with essential services, and through cutting the Parliament livestream obstructed public access to the heart of our democracy.”

“It has posed a serious risk to the security of Gibraltar’s national infrastructure and has put lives at risk.”

No.6 Convent Place said “it is not clear” if the outage was sabotage and, if so, if it was “somehow” related to industrial action by the Information Technology & Logistics Department, backed by the GGCA union, over a claim which the Gibraltar Government considers “completely unjustified and disproportionate”.

But No.6 added that public servants attempting to access the internet on Tuesday were met with a message directly referencing the industrial action and quoting the GGCA’s original press release, with specific citation of salary disparity.

“The Government was shocked at the GGCA’s description of this message as ‘humorous’,” No.6 said in the statement.

“It is unacceptable that this message appears on the PCs of over 3000 public servants when trying to use the internet for important work matters, so that IT&LD officers put pressure on their claim that would see basic salaries increase up to £12,000 per employee per annum.”

Wendy Cumming, President of the GGCA, said she was shocked by the Government’s claims in the statement.

She said the outage arose because of vital maintenance work of internet services by IT&LD staff.

Such work would normally be carried out outside normal working hours but because IT&LD staff are currently not carrying out any discretionary overtime as part of their industrial action, it had to be done earlier, she said.

“The Government statement is a complete confabulation of what is going on,” Ms Cumming added, adding the government had refused to talk to the GGCA about the claim.

Ms Cumming said too that she was “horrified and concerned” by the Government’s decision to report the matter to the RGP and “threaten” disciplinary action.

In the statement, the Government said it had rejected the claim put forward by the GGCA and maintained its position that the salaries and pay scales of IT&LD staff were “just and proportionate” to roles and experience, and that they benefited from automatic career progression as vacancies become available.

Basic salaries in the department ranged from £22,661 to £64,872 and were bolstered by overtime payments that substantially increased take-home pay.

Referring to the findings of the recent Principal Auditor’s report, No.6 said all claims had to be “considered carefully”.

“The Government has a duty to safeguard both taxpayers’ money and public safety and will not be pre-emptively coerced into decisions by demands, threats and ultimatums,” No.6 said.

“These issues can and should be resolved through sensible and realistic discussion, and not through irresponsible and intentional disruption to the essential work of all public servants.”

“The Government discussed this with the GGCA this morning to express its deep dissatisfaction and disappointment with this escalation, and to invite them to rectify the disruption and restore IT services immediately and not to cause any further deliberate industrial actions.”

As of Tuesday evening, internet use was not yet fully restored for the public service or for members of the public wanting to contact Government, “which is completely unacceptable”, the statement added.

“The Government reserves the right to meet this unreasonable escalation which is interfering with its electronic communications systems with such measures as it may consider appropriate,” No.6 said.

“Furthermore, the Government will take any necessary disciplinary action against anyone found to have been responsible for this deliberate sabotage of Gibraltar’s critical infrastructure.”

“The Government apologises to the public for the disruption to public services and will take every reasonable measure to ensure stability of service to the public.”