Banks, media, supermarkets: Millions hit by IT outage across Australia

Millions of people across Australia have been affected by a massive Microsoft outage that is causing chaos across multiple businesses 

About 3pm on Friday, computers across the country began shutting down with multiple workers reporting issues with multiple different businesses.

The shutdown forced Microsoft devices to go blue and then try to reboot, locking users out of key systems.

Outage website Downdetector reported Bendigo Bank, Foxtel, National Australia Bank, Australia Post, Suncorp, Xero, NBN, Commonwealth Bank, MYOB, ME Bank, Optus, Telstra Amazon, Westpac, Google, ANZ and Microsoft being among the companies caught in the mass shut down.

Multiple media organisations reported issues with networks, including the ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9 and News Corp Australia.

Airlines are also being affected by the outage, with Qantas having to delay boarding on some flights.

There are also reports point-of-sales systems are being affected, with some people taking to Twitter to report Coles’ self-serve Eftpos machines weren’t working.

Another user took to X to say it was “mayhem at Woolworths” when the outages started.

Australia’s biggest telco Telstra was also affected, with a spokesman confirming it was working with state-based emergency services to restore services.

Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness said it appeared the outrage was not the work of online criminals.

“I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia,” she wrote on X on Friday afternoon.

“Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issues with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies.”

Ajay Unni, chief executive at Australian cybersecurity company StickmanCyber, said it appeared companies that hadn’t completed a software upgrade from Crowdstrike were affected.

“It is our understanding that any business running versions 7.15 and 7.16 are affected by the outage, but 7.17 seems to be ok,” Mr Unni said.

“We are waiting on official advisory from CrowdStrike on these findings but doing our best to help affected customers. It’s a lesson to always update your software, but obviously this is an extreme example.

“IT security tools are all designed to ensure that companies can continue to operate in the worst-case scenario of a data breach, so to be the root cause of a global IT outage is an unmitigated disaster.”

Qantas said flights were still operating with “some delays”. “We are working with our providers to resolve the issue as quickly as possible,” the airline said.

Coles is also understood to be affected, with staff telling customers that none of their terminals could be used. It was only accepting cash, physical credit cards, no electronic card payments. 

Commonwealth Bank said some customers couldn’t make PayID payments but transactions could be completed using a BSB and account number.

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank also apologised to customers after they couldn’t complete some online banking transactions.

Optus – which suffered a nation-wide outage, cutting of about 10 million Australians, late last year – was named as also one of the businesses affected. But a spokeswoman said its network was functioning as normal.

But it recorded a spike in customers failing to access key services, such as online banking.

“At this early stage it does not appear that Optus is impacted, however our IT team are closely monitoring the situation and will maintain a heightened vigilance,” the Optus spokeswoman said.

The ASX also recorded a spike on Downdetector. An ASX spokesman said the exchange was aware of the technology outage and was “closely monitoring the situation”.

Crowdstrike and Microsoft have been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Millions hit by massive global IT failure crippling banks, supermarkets, airlines, media