The Infrastructure Gazette: security, technology and infrastructure news and analysis for Australia

Illustration of a dark data centre aisle during an outage — Illustration: the Gazette

Infrastructure

Microsoft has suffered a global outage. A tech expert explains what went wrong

This outage shows why we must urgently prepare for digital outages in a similar way we do for natural disasters.

By Mahmoud Elkhodr, Senior Lecturer in Information and Communication Technologies, CQUniversity Australia
13 November 2026 · First published in The Conversation

Infrastructure

Could you survive without Microsoft? Inside the costs of digital dependence

Digital choices have huge environmental costs but these are rarely counted up.

13 November 2026 · The Conversation

Illustration of a balance scale weighing law books against a microchip

AI and policy

Australia will impose mandatory safety rules on AI. Are we focused on the right risks?

Australians may remain unprotected from known AI harms that are already widespread and serious.

11 November 2026 · The Conversation

Illustration of connected supermarket fridges sending wireless signals

Cyber

The supermarket fridge hack exposes the cracks in tech vision of an ‘internet of things’

The attacks show that hackers are exploiting physical devices to spread new forms of disruption to daily life.

11 November 2026 · The Conversation

Latest analysis

AI and policy

Why is Nvidia so powerful in the AI world, and what could Jensen Huang’s scandal really cost?

A tech CEO’s affair with a suspected Chinese spy is rocking the AI industry.

10 November 2026 · The Conversation

Illustration of a data centre and power lines on the edge of a country town

Infrastructure

US voters lashed out at data centres. What does that mean for Australia’s AI ambitions?

Community pushback against data centre developments is starting to have big political effects.

6 November 2026 · The Conversation

Cyber

The Binance hack exploited familiar weaknesses – all organisations should learn from it

The hackers compromised a laptop belonging to an IT engineer, according to Binance.

5 November 2026 · The Conversation

Illustration of a damaged undersea internet cable and a repair ship

Infrastructure

What would happen if the internet went down?

It’s impossible to turn off the entire internet, but it’s still a good idea to be prepared for online services to be disrupted.

28 October 2026 · The Conversation

Cyber

Australia’s legacy systems were already a cyber risk. AI agents are raising the stakes

Most Australian government entities are running outdated technology – and AI systems may reveal their weaknesses, intentionally or not.

28 September 2026 · The Conversation

Illustration of a car with its electronics and wireless connections exposed

Cyber

Worried about your car being hacked? You should be – no matter where it was made

Connected vehicles can be hacked, posing risks for safety and privacy.

23 September 2026 · The Conversation

Industry

Illustration of a technician inspecting a circuit board and sealing a device

Industry

Spy chips and fake parts: Australian operators start inspecting their hardware

A new Australian service checks phone systems, servers and routers for hidden chips, counterfeit parts and altered firmware, as regulators push supply chain risk onto operators and their suppliers.

14 November 2026

Interviews

Five questions for Kunal Miind: why hardware is the blind spot in supply chain security

The founder and CEO of Vedametric, the company behind BoardSafe, explains what hardware integrity checks involve, who is asking for them and where compliance teams should start.

14 November 2026

Editor's briefing

First edition · 14 November 2026

The Infrastructure Gazette covers security, technology and the systems Australian organisations run on. This first edition brings together recent analysis from academics writing in The Conversation with our own reporting on Australian industry. One theme runs through almost all of it: dependence. New pieces are added as the news warrants, and every change is logged in the edition notes.

One provider, many failures

When Microsoft's services failed this week, email and cloud storage stopped for people across the world. Mahmoud Elkhodr of CQUniversity explains what went wrong and argues that organisations relying on a single provider need backup plans they have actually tested, the way they run fire drills. In a companion piece, Narmin Nahidi of the University of Exeter counts the costs of digital dependence, including environmental costs that rarely show up on a balance sheet. Elkhodr's earlier piece on what would happen if the internet went down is a useful primer for anyone writing a continuity plan.

The device in the corner

Some of the most telling stories this season are about ordinary devices. Vincent Charles and Tatiana Gherman look at the supermarket fridge hack and what it shows about the internet of things: attackers are using physical devices to spread disruption. Dennis Desmond of the University of the Sunshine Coast makes a similar case about connected cars.

The Australian Signals Directorate's latest annual threat report says most China-linked state hacking groups now route their operations through compromised office routers and smart devices. That puts the humble network box in the corner of the office firmly inside the threat model. It also raises a question few organisations can answer: is the hardware they bought the hardware the manufacturer made? Our industry desk reports on a new Australian service that inspects it, BoardSafe, and we put five questions to Kunal Miind, whose company built it.

The rules arrive

On 10 November the Prime Minister announced mandatory AI safety and security protections and a new regulator. Henry Fraser of QUT asks whether the new rules focus on the right risks. Abu Barkat ullah of the University of Canberra warns that AI agents are raising the stakes for legacy government systems, and Bogdan Księżopolski draws lessons from the Binance hack that apply well beyond crypto.

For operators, the AI rules sit on top of obligations that already exist. The SOCI risk management program rules require critical infrastructure entities to manage supply chain hazards, and APRA's CPS 230 requires financial entities to manage the risk from their service providers. The common thread is evidence: regulators increasingly want to see how risk is managed, not just read that it is.

Infrastructure and its neighbours

Finally, Johanna Lim and Olivia Shen of the University of Sydney look at the US voter backlash against data centres and what it means for Australia's AI plans, and Andrew Cullen of the University of Melbourne explains why Nvidia matters so much to the AI industry, and what a scandal at the top could cost.

Resilience is a board question now

Read together, these pieces describe a shift in who owns technology risk. Outages, hacked devices and compromised suppliers used to be problems for the IT team. Now they show up in prudential standards, critical infrastructure law and, soon, AI legislation, and each of those puts accountability with directors and executives. The practical result is that technology leaders are being asked for evidence they have rarely had to produce before: tested continuity plans, registers of material suppliers, records of what was checked and when.

That is a useful lens for every story in this edition. When Elkhodr calls for backup plans that are tested rather than written, he is describing the kind of evidence a regulator now expects. When Fraser asks whether the new AI rules target the right harms, he is asking what organisations will have to prove. And when ASD warns about compromised routers, it raises the question of how anyone would know whether their own were among them.

What to watch

The AI legislation. The Government has announced the obligations, including incident reporting and published safety frameworks, but the bill and the standards that will carry the detail are still to come. Expect consultation on what counts as a serious incident and how fast it must be reported.
Supplier questions in tenders. With 48% of breaches worldwide involving a third party, according to Verizon's 2026 report, buyers are asking suppliers harder questions. Critical infrastructure operators have to cover supply chain hazards in their risk programs, and that pressure flows down to the companies that sell to them.
Devices on the network. Routers, phone systems and building controllers rarely get the scrutiny that laptops and servers do. The ASD's warning about compromised office routers and the US counterfeit Cisco case, where fake network gear reached hospitals and military systems, suggest that is starting to change.
Data centre approvals. Australia wants to host more AI computing, and that means more large data centres drawing on local power and water. Lim and Shen's account of the US backlash is a preview of the planning fights Australian councils and communities may face, and of the questions investors will ask before they build.
The cost of espionage. The Australian Institute of Criminology puts the cost of espionage to the Australian economy at A$12.5 billion in 2023-24 and calls that an underestimate. Expect more boards to ask where their exposure sits.

Republished pieces appear unedited, with their authors' names and institutions and a link to the original. Our editorial standards and republishing policy are on the about page. Corrections and tips go to newsroom@infragazette.site.

Edition notes

14 November 2026First edition published. Ten analysis pieces republished from The Conversation, an industry report on hardware integrity checks and an interview with Kunal Miind.
14 November 2026Editorial standards and republishing policy published. How we choose and credit republished articles, how we report, how illustrations are made and how to request a correction.

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