Global IT Outage Hits Banks, Supermarkets, and Media Outlets Across Australia and the World

A major IT outage has struck banks, supermarkets, and media outlets across Australia and globally, believed to be linked to a cybersecurity issue involving CrowdStrike software. Among the affected organizations are the ABC and Jetstar.

Information technology company Tesserent, in partnership with Thales Australia, has provided an update on the CrowdStrike problem, offering solutions to the widespread issue affecting numerous major companies.

Airports like Edinburgh in Scotland and Schiphol in the Netherlands have reported system failures, with flights grounded and manual checks being conducted. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a ground stop on airlines like United and Delta.

Qantas has confirmed that flights are still operational but experiencing delays due to the global software disruption. Meanwhile, major supermarkets and banks, including NAB and Commonwealth Bank, are facing internal system failures, causing chaos for customers.

Experts suggest that the simultaneous CrowdStrike and internal Microsoft issues globally have caused the large-scale IT outage. Australian authorities note that this incident does not appear to be a cyber attack, although it is of significant magnitude.

Despite the disruption, the ASX‘s trading platforms remain unaffected, operating normally during the outage period. Companies like Woolworths are implementing manual processes at affected stores, while medical facilities in Canberra remain unimpacted.