Major Cyber Outage Disrupts Key Sectors in Australia and New Zealand
A significant cyber outage has disrupted various sectors across Australia and New Zealand, impacting systems provided by Crowdstrike and Microsoft. The outage affected major entities, including Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, and Sydney Airport, leading to widespread disruptions in media, retail, banking, and other critical sectors.
Australia's national cyber security coordinator clarified that the disruption was due to a "large-scale technical outage" linked to a "third-party software platform," and assured that it was not a cyber-security incident involving hackers.
"Flights are currently arriving and departing; however, there may be some delays throughout the evening," a Sydney Airport spokesman reported.
Similarly, Christchurch International Airport in New Zealand announced that it was "experiencing IT issues across a number of our systems which may affect flight arrivals and departures."
The outage also impacted banks and the computer network within New Zealand's parliament. Telecommunications firm Telstra noted that some of its systems were disrupted, potentially affecting emergency services that utilize its network.
Telstra attributed the issues to "global problems" related to software provided by Microsoft and the American cybersecurity company Crowdstrike.
