Major IT outage impacting banks, media, airlines and supermarkets

A widespread global software glitch is affecting almost 100 companies and agencies nationwide, including banks, airlines, media outlets and government services.

Crowd-sourced website Downdetector has listed Telstra, Microsoft, Google, NBN, Foxtel, National Australia Bank, ABC, CBA, ANZ, and Bendigo Bank as suffering outages.

A spokesperson for the Australian government said it was working "closely" with the National Cyber Security Coordinator.

The National Emergency Mechanism group is expected to meet shortly, a federal government spokesperson said.

"There is no information to suggest this is a cyber security incident and they are continuing to engage across key stakeholders," the spokesperson said.

National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness confirmed this on X.

"Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies," she wrote.

Microsoft reported problems with its services, saying some users may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services

"We're investigating an issue impacting users' ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services", the tweet posted on the social media platform X said on Friday.

In Melbourne, Nine News was forced to improvise the start of its 4pm bulletin amid problems with their prepared news packages.

Sky News has had similar problems with its services reduced because of the outage.

ABC radio networks are also down.

An ABC spokesperson said it was "aware of an external IT issue affecting some services".

"ABC Technology Teams are actively investigating the issue."

Qantas and Jetstar have also been affected, with the boarding of flights delayed.

Flights to and from Australia's largest airport, Sydney, are affected.

"A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services," a spokesperson said.

"Flights are currently arriving and departing, however there may be some delays throughout the evening."

The airport has brought on additional staff to help passengers, they said.

Check-ins for some airlines at Melbourne Airport are also delayed.

"Passengers flying with these airlines this afternoon are advised to allow a little extra time to check-in," the airport says on its website.

Disruptions have also hit the airport in Canberra.

Supermarkets including Coles and Woolworths are also experiencing major delays due to checkouts not working. Shoppers have been unable to enter these supermarkets in some locations.

Many shops were forced to cease Friday trading when their EFTPOS stopped working.

RMIT associate professor Dr Mark Gregory said it appeared the outage has been caused by a failure of systems associated with the Crowdstrike Falcon endpoint security monitoring software.

Crowdstrike is a global multi-national software solutions provider.

"The reliance on centrally managed global software solution can lead to significant security risks," he said.

The emergency number 000 is working, but NSW and Victorian police systems have gone down.

Victoria Police released a statement saying that they were investigating any ongoing impact of the outage. "There are some internal application systems affected by the national outage, these are not impacting our ability to dispatch or respond to incidents," it said.

A NSW SES spokesperson said the SES remained operational.

"For life threatening incidents call 000. For assistance in floods, storm and tsunami ring the NSW SES on 132500," the spokesperson said.

A Telstra spokesperson said the issue was causing some holdups for some of our customers.

"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," the spokersperson said.

Numerous ABC reporters and producers have taken to social media to post about the issue.

Illawarra reporter Nick McLaren wrote on X the ABC was having "major IT issues" across the country.

"We apologise for any break in transmission or loss of regular programs."

ABC Radio National host Andy Park confirmed ABC radio was down.

ABC producer Catherine Zengerer said that a "major technology issue" is affecting the ABC right now.

"Normal RN programming (including the LNL repeat) is affected and replacement music is playing."