Major IT outage wreaks havoc on national services

Australian banks, governments, airports and media companies are responding after being hit by a major IT outage hitting Microsoft and CrowdStrike software systems around the world.

A federal government spokesperson said they were working closely with the National Cyber Security Coordinator on the “unfolding outage” which started about 3.30pm.

“This outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies,” they said.

“As the cyber security co-ordinator has said, there is no information to suggest this is a cyber security incident and they are continuing to engage across key stakeholders.”

The spokesperson said the National Emergency Mechanism group are meeting and be co-chaired by the National Emergency Management Agency.

Crowd-sourced website Downdetector has listed Telstra, Microsoft, Google, Foxtel, National Australia Bank, ABC, Uber, ANZ, and Bendigo Bank as suffering outages.

GOVERNMENT

* “There is no evidence that this is a cyber-security incident ... This is a technical issue, caused by a Crowdstrike update to its customers. They have issued a fix for this, allowing affected companies and organisations to reboot their systems without the problem” - Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil

* “There is no impact to critical infrastructure, government services or triple-zero services at this stage. The National Coordination Mechanism has been activated and is meeting” - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

* “This outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies ... There is no information to suggest it is a cyber-security incident” - Australian National Cyber Security Coordinator

* “Departments are activating business continuity plans to ensure ongoing service” - NSW government

* “There has been no impact to critical infrastructure or Triple Zero Victoria, and we are working closely with the Federal Government to understand the impact of the outage” - Victorian government

TECH

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed” - cybersecurity company CrowdStrike whose software update seems to have gone awry

“Everything is up and running” - Microsoft, after more than five hours of interruptions to apps and services

BANKS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES

* “Services are still available including Netbank, the CommBank app, CommBiz, merchant payments and our ATMs” - Commonwealth Bank

* “ASX’s trading platforms were unaffected during Friday’s trading session and worked as expected” - stock exchange operator ASX

AIRPORTS, AIRLINES AND TRANSPORT

* “A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services” - Sydney Airport

* “A global technology issue is impacting check-in procedures for some airlines” - Melbourne Airport

* “Flights are continuing to land and take-off from Brisbane Airport. Airlines impacted by IT issues are using back-up systems to keep passengers moving” - Brisbane Airport

* “A global technology issue which is impacting check-in procedures for some airlines as well as some terminal services” - Adelaide Airport

* “A global IT issue is impacting check-in for some airlines at Perth Airport. Flights are continuing to operate” - Perth Airport

* “Operations remain stable following the impacts of a large-scale IT outage impacting businesses across the country” - Virgin Australia

* “Services on qantas.com and the app such as booking and managing flights, online check-in, and retrieving your digital boarding pass impacted (but) Qantas passengers should continue to travel to the airport for their upcoming flight” - Qantas

* “We recommend customers check the status of their flights before departing for the airport” - Jetstar

* “Services resuming after earlier widespread external communications outage. Major delays are being experienced as we work to recover the network” - V-Line

POLICE

* “Victoria Police are currently able to receive and dispatch calls from triple zero Victoria. There are some internal application systems affected by the national outage, these are not impacting our ability to dispatch or respond to incidents” - Victoria Police* “Police are aware of the current system outage” - NSW Police

HEALTH

* Western Health affected and have implemented a number of back-up processes to minimise impact to patient care - Victoria

MEDIA

* “The ABC is experiencing a major network outage, along with several other media outlets” - ABC

SUPERMARKETS

* “All stores across the country except for six are open and trading ... customers may find less registers available than normal ... A small number of online orders have been unable to be fulfilled” - Woolworths

* “A global technical issue which is disrupting some of our systems in our supermarkets and liquor stores” - Coles

SERVICES

* “The issue is causing some hold-ups for some of our customers (but) there is no impact to our fixed or mobile network which continue to operate” - Telstra

* “Services impacted include Online Shop, Post BillPay online, MyPost Business online, Mail Redirection Service Online, National Police Checks, PO Box Lease & Renewal online” - Australia Post

EXPERTS:

* “It’s not just a mistake or just an error, this is the worst sort of thing that can happen ...This is more serious than a cyber attack, really, because it shows our systems aren’t even proofed against randomness” - UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering cybercrime professor Richard Buckland

* “A major outage has occurred, affecting a number of Australian and global organisations. It appears not to be malicious in nature, rather an error stemming from a network outage. The type of outage is unknown at this stage but it highlights the dependencies organisations have on the internet and related online technologies” - Monash University cybersecurity professor Nigel Phair

“Home computers should not be affected by what’s happening. CrowdStrike typically provides its Falcon security platform to large businesses and enterprise customers” - RMIT telecommunications and network engineering academic Mark Gregory.