Society's reliance on digital technology was laid bare last week with CrowdStrike's system crash.

With no hackers in sight, a undetected computer bug triggered by an automatic update for a piece of software caused major issues across the world.

Microsoft has estimated that the incident, which is being described as one of the worst IT outages in history, impacted 8.5 million computers.

Businesses, banks, hospitals and airlines were among the worst-hit, with some still struggling to fully restore their systems.

For anyone attempting to make an EFTPOS or credit card purchase during this time, the chances of success were definitely low.

For this reason, the Australian Citizens Party (ACP) says the lesson from the event is that the ultimate manual redundancy in case of system failure is cash.

There were problems using eftpos and ATMs in some cities, but there was little impact in local branches. FILE IMAGE.

“Cash is king”, ACP Research Director Robert Barwick said, “but the banks have been working very hard to overthrow the king."

“In 2019 the Morrison government tried to do the banks’ dirty work for them by banning cash transactions over $10,000, but was forced to back off by an enormous public backlash.

""Yet since then, the banks themselves have tried to force us to go cashless by taking away access to cash—closing thousands of branches and ripping out tens of thousands of ATMs."

“The banks want every single transaction to go through their computers, so they can take a cut of literally everything, and spy on everything we do so they can monetise our data. This outage should anger every Australian, because it should never have been this disruptive."

At one bank in Narromine, a spokesperson told Western Plains App that they had not experienced any issues during the IT shutdown.

"Luckily we didn't experience any issues and could operate as usual," they said. "Computers were a bit slow, but that's not necessarily unusual at times."

Other phone calls to business outlets yielded similar results. Like many, the Warren Shire Council said it had been "business as usual" during the event.

But for outlets that were affected, people with cash were definitely at an advantage.

This has been a further catalyst for the ACP who are calling on all Australians to demand Parliament pass a proposed Keeping Cash Transactions in Australia Bill 2024, which will make it unlawful for businesses not to accept cash payments (up to $10,000 and with some reasonable exceptions).

“We’ve been conned by the banks to accept cashless businesses, and this is a wake-up call”, Mr Barwick said. “There should be no more cashless businesses, full stop.

""Cash is not only legal tender, it is the most reliable medium for transacting under all conditions, including natural disasters, power failures and digital outages."

The 'blue screen of death' meant frustrations for many. FILE PHOTO.

But the outage wasn't only about cash.

Member for Barwon, Roy Butler, experienced technological difficulties as he travelled to Broken Hill to speak on radio at the height of the issues.

"With the ongoing Blue Screen of Death issues I was excited to see an old school recording machine on the desk at ABC Broken Hill when I arrived with Ron Hoenig MP," Mr Butler said. "It was an iPhone and microphone to the rescue for the interview."

On Monday this week, he was still experiencing issues at his office in Narrabri.

"My offices are still impacted by the issue, please give us a call if we can help, we will get to emails when the software is restored," Mr Butler said. 

Ordinary residents in the western plains did not escape unscathed.

Ïn the outage today I was affected via my phone where I couldn't access anything or do anything,"one reader told the Western Plains App.

"I was in middle of studying and my laptop had crashed so I was met with the blue screen of death.

"I had assessments that needed doing but couldn't. I couldn't access emails, Aus post, Gmail, NAB, and I had alot of stuff to do."