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  • Google Cloud accidentally deleted UniSuper's account and backups, causing a major data loss and downtime for the company.
  • UniSuper was able to recover data from backups with a different provider after the incident.
  • The incident highlighted the importance of having safeguards in place for cloud service providers to prevent such catastrophic events from occurring.
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[-] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 51 points 6 months ago

As the saying goes: if you only have one backup you have zero backups.

How the fuck does Google of all companies manage to accidentally delete that‽

[-] smokinliver@sopuli.xyz 21 points 6 months ago

If this is the thing I heard of a few days ago then google had multiple backups on different sites but they managed to delete all of them

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

I guess they weren’t paying quite enough to have offline backups? I believe financial institutions can keep stuff stored in caves (think records of all the mortgages a bank wants to be repaid for - data loss isn’t an option).

[-] T156@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

From the sounds of it, they did, since they were able to recover the data from elsewhere.

They just lost the data they kept and stored with Google.

[-] RedditRefugee69@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

I’m betting job cuts and someone was in a hurry

[-] T156@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Backups all tied to the same Google account that got mistakenly terminated, and automation did the rest?

It didn't matter that they might have had backups on different services, since it was all centralised through Google, it was all blown away simultaneously.

[-] erwan@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago

It's weird that backups got deleted immediately. I would imagine they get marked for deletion but really deleted something like a month later to prevent this kind of issue.

[-] Hootz@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago

That's when accounts are closed or payments missed, I think in this case they just deleted the sub itself which just bypassed everything for instant deletion.

[-] asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't see why it matters that it was a subscription. Anything which deletes data should be a soft delete.

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 points 6 months ago

Sometimes it has to be a hard delete to comply with a user's request to remove data.

[-] ricdeh@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

UniSuper was able to recover data from backups with a different provider after the incident.

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 5 points 6 months ago

My first job was in a Big Iron shop in the late 80's, where I was in charge of backups. We kept Three sets of backups, on two different media, one on hand, one in a different location in the main building, in a water and fireproof safe, and one offsite. We had a major failure one day, and had to do a restore.

Both inhouse copies failed to restore. Thankfully the offsite copy worked. We were in panic. That taught me to keep all my important data on three sets. As the old saying goes: Data loss is not an if question, but a when question. Also, remember that "the cloud" simply means someone else's remote servers over which you have no control.

[-] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

And had you ever tested the restore process?

[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 months ago

In a big iron shop?everything gets tested, dry run, etc, but shit happens, hence backups

[-] Hootz@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 months ago

Everything is tied to the subscriptions, they deleted the sub and that automatically deleted all backups.

[-] linearchaos@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

That sounds like a pretty trashy backup scheme. I don't care what your subscription status is I'm keeping those backups until retension's over.

[-] capital@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Very stupid.

AWS has a holding period after account deletion where nothing is actually deleted, just inaccessible and access can be regained without data loss.

Since first hearing about this I’m wondering how TF Google Cloud doesn’t have a similar SOP.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 35 points 6 months ago

"an unprecedented sequence of events"

[-] Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Yeah? It was, what's your point?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 23 points 6 months ago

It sounds similar to "a unscheduled pen test" and other corporate speak

[-] andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun 15 points 6 months ago

These situations are almost always self-inflicted. If someone else hacked Google Cloud this badly then you'd likely have heard it from them first. And they probably would have done something significantly more destructive if their goal was harming Google reputation.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 months ago

I just found the phasing to be kind of funny

[-] skittle07crusher@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

“rapid unscheduled disassembly” 🙄

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago

Boeing is opening the doors to the ~~future~~ plane mid flight

[-] 1984@lemmy.today 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Sounds really dramatic in a news item though. Click bait. :)

But yeah, I recently moved away from these cloud services and have a Nas at home now. Only encrypted backups in cloud. Because fuck Google.

[-] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

“Unprecedented” is kinda hot right now. Tries to mitigate too much blame being heaped on: “obviously we prepare for the usual and even the unexpected, but this has literally never happened before (give us another shot pls)”.

So it’s interesting for the news that it takes on a different context when said breathlessly: “UNPRECEDENTED failure!”

[-] riodoro1@lemmy.world 35 points 6 months ago

Second week with this story.

[-] I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago
[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

reading about google fucking up and bringing other corporations down with it never gets old.

[-] applepie@kbin.social 6 points 6 months ago

Sudar the creep will keep your nudes around for rest of eternity but can't provide proper enterprise product...

Cheers

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Reading about Google fucking up got old ten years ago.

[-] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 4 points 6 months ago

I was gonna ask if this happened again lol

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 14 points 6 months ago

Follow the 3-2-1 rule for your important data, ideally 4-3-2 or better. Remember, if you only have one copy of your data, you actually have zero copies of your data.

[-] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

what are these rules? i genuinely am not aware of them.

[-] LastElemental@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

3 separate backups on 2 different media (ie 2 backups on 2 separate HDDs plus one on DVDs) with At least 1 offsite (ie a satellite office or your parents house for personal stuff)

[-] ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

cheers mate.

[-] nieceandtows@programming.dev 14 points 6 months ago

They're talking like it's some global celestial event

[-] andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun 19 points 6 months ago

Unprecedented only means there's no precedent. This just hasn't happened before at this scale.

[-] nieceandtows@programming.dev 20 points 6 months ago

I was only commenting on the phrasing. 'unprecedented cloud event' sounds like some global scale meteorological event.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 3 points 6 months ago

The headline does say "Customer account" as in singular.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 months ago

If you didn't put Google's name in there I would've assumed a different company facepalming. Hint: it's the one whose name sounds like 'unsure'.

[-] fxt_ryknow@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

At the end of the day... Cloud storage is just using someone else's computer.

[-] ad_on_is@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Always follow the 3-2-1 rule, Google. Always!

[-] _sideffect@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Imagine if YouTube lost all its videos

this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
360 points (95.5% liked)

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