LuxTrust services were paralysed for almost an entire day last week, leaving users unable to carry out essential operations such as bank transfers or access to MyGuichet, and with Christmas approaching, even last-minute purchases were affected.
Faced with the scale of the outage, the chairman of the board of directors, Serge Allegrezza, apologised and described the incident as “embarrassing” during an interview with Luxembourg’s public service radio 100,7. He said the disruption was caused by a single piece of faulty equipment, but added that the backup system failed to take over as it should have.
LuxTrust is now carrying out an in-depth analysis with its suppliers to determine the exact causes of the malfunction. No results have yet been communicated, but Allegrezza acknowledged that the company will need to draw lessons from the incident, particularly when it comes to communication. While exchanges with professional stakeholders reportedly went smoothly, informing the general public proved more difficult as teams were still working to resolve the outage.
The incident has also reignited questions about LuxTrust’s dominant position on the Luxembourg market and the lack of an alternative in the event of a failure. The chairman of the board called for this debate to be addressed “with a cool head”, while admitting that the system’s resilience did not meet expectations.
The reaction of the Minister of the Economy, Lex Delles, also drew attention. Initially measured, his response became firmer as the day went on, with him describing the situation as “unacceptable”. Allegrezza said he understood this position, while stressing that it would now be necessary to wait for the conclusions of the analyses in order to improve the system on a lasting basis.
