Australia's cyber intelligence agency, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), reported on Saturday that malicious websites and unofficial code were being disseminated online, falsely claiming to assist in recovering from the global digital outage that occurred on Friday. This outage, which impacted media, retailers, banks, and airlines, was one of many disruptions experienced worldwide due to a faulty software update by CrowdStrike.
The ASD warned that several malicious websites and unofficial code were being released, purporting to aid entities in recovering from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident. The agency's cyber security centre strongly advises all consumers to obtain their technical information and updates solely from official CrowdStrike sources.
Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil cautioned Australians on the social media platform X to be vigilant against potential scams and phishing attempts. The outage affected the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest bank, causing some customers to temporarily be unable to make PayID payments, a problem that was later resolved. National airline Qantas and Sydney airport experienced delays but continued operations.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reassured the public that there had been no impact on critical infrastructure, government services, or emergency phone systems. CrowdStrike, a significant cybersecurity provider with close to 30,000 global subscribers, had previously reached a market cap of approximately $83 billion.
