Media outlets and major brands hit by IT outage
A number of big-name Australian organisations, media companies, and brands have been impacted by a major IT outage around the country, and globally.
As reported by the ABC, the issue has come from Microsoft and third-party cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.
The public broadcaster is one of many experiencing the major network outage as of Friday afternoon, with an ABC spokesman telling Mumbrella: “The ABC is aware of an external IT issue affecting some services. ABC Technology Teams are actively investigating the issue.”
Per The Guardian Australia, Microsoft has reported it is “investigating issues with its cloud services in the US”, while Crowdstrike has posted in its support updates that it has identified the issue, attributing it to changes made to its “content deployment” that has since been reverted.
According to the Downdetector website, other companies being impacted currently include Foxtel, Telstra, Nine, Network 10, Netflix, Gmail, NAB, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac, and Suncorp, among hundreds of others.
#BREAKING: Widespread Microsoft outages have sent IT systems across Australia into a tailspin this afternoon, with banks, airlines, police, and other systems reported as being affected.
(And humble news social team admins too, evidently. We're doing our best here. More to come.) pic.twitter.com/IM0LZARu5v
— 10 News First (@10NewsFirst) July 19, 2024
A Telstra spokesperson told Mumbrella in a statement: “Like a number of other organisations, global issues affecting CrowdStrike and Microsoft are disrupting some of our systems. The issue is causing some holdups for some of our customers and we thank them for their patience.
“There is no impact to our fixed or mobile network which continue to operate. Calls to our Triple Zero contact centres are not affected, but we understand some state emergency services are also impacted and we are working with them to implement backup processes.”
Xero has also told Mumbrella that customers are experiencing issues “as a result of a third party issue with Crowdstrike”.
Though Optus was also listed on the Downdetector website as one of the brands being impacted, a spokesperson for the telco told Mumbrella: “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.”
Meanwhile, a Commonwealth Bank spokesperson told Mumbrella: “We are aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies. This outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform. We are urgently investigating any impacts to our systems and services.
“We know some customers have been unable to make PayID payments. If you are unable to use PayID, you’re still able to make payments between your accounts or pay someone using their BSB and account number. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience while we work through the impacts.”
The National Cyber Security Coordinator has since tweeted that there is “no information to suggest it is a cyber security incident”.
“I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia this afternoon,” the tweets read.
“Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies.”
Mumbrella has contacted a number of the names listed on the website.
At around 5.45pm on Friday evening, ABC reported that Crowdstrike the update: “CrowdStrike have deployed a new content update which resolves the previously erroneous update and subsequent host issues.
“As your devices receive this update you may need to reboot for the changes to take effect and for the blue screen (BSOD) issues to be resolved.”
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