Major Cyber Outage Hits Australia and New Zealand

A cyber outage impacting Crowdstrike and Microsoft's systems caused disruptions across media, retail, banking, and other key sectors in Australia and New Zealand. Major entities like Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, and Sydney airport experienced issues, while officials stressed it wasn't a cyber-security incident.

A cyber outage linked to global cybersecurity firms Crowdstrike and Microsoft disrupted operations across various sectors in Australia and New Zealand on Friday, affecting media, retailers, banks, airlines, and telecom companies.

Commonwealth Bank, Australia's largest bank, reported that customers faced difficulties in transferring money due to the service outage. Additionally, Qantas and Sydney airport experienced flight delays but continued to operate. Victorian state police also confirmed that some internal systems had been impaired, though emergency services remained functional.

Numerous media companies witnessed interruptions in their output. A spokesperson from Telstra emphasized the global impact of issues affecting Crowdstrike and Microsoft on their systems. Crowdstrike acknowledged reports of crashes on Microsoft's Windows OS tied to its Falcon sensor but did not specifically mention Australia in its statement.

Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness assured the public that there was no evidence of a cyber-security incident, attributing the outage to a technical issue with a third-party software platform.

New Zealand's parliamentary systems were also impacted, and state broadcaster ABC reported a major network outage. Sky News Australia's regular programming faced disruptions, with a correspondent denying that a hack caused the outage. Error messages on payment systems were observed at the Harris Farm grocery chain in Sydney.

(With inputs from agencies.)