Widespread Cyber Outage Disrupts Major Firms in Australia and New Zealand

A significant cyber outage impacted various sectors including media, retail, banks, airlines, and telecoms in Australia and New Zealand. The issue, linked to global cybersecurity firms CrowdStrike and Microsoft, caused delays and disruptions but was not identified as a cyber attack.

A major cyber outage connected to global cybersecurity firms CrowdStrike and Microsoft disrupted media, retail, banks, airlines, and telecoms sectors in Australia and New Zealand on Friday. Australia's largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, reported customer issues with money transfers due to the service outage while Qantas and Sydney airport confirmed plane delays.

Victoria's state police acknowledged internal system interruptions but maintained emergency operations. Various media outlets faced disruptions, with Telstra reporting global issues impacting some of their systems. CrowdStrike acknowledged crashes related to Microsoft's Windows operating system in a recorded message to Reuters.

According to Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness, there was no evidence of a cyber attack, attributing the problem to a technical issue with third-party software. New Zealand's parliamentary computer systems and several companies, including state broadcaster ABC, also encountered major network outages.

(With inputs from agencies.)