The full impact of a global software outage is yet to be quantified as banks, media, supermarkets, airlines and tech platforms across Australia race to try and minimise the damage.

It has been reported that a technical glitch relating to CrowdStrike software caused a global outage with significant reach today (Friday 19 July).

The Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Suncorp, Microsoft 365, Foxtel and the national broadcaster ABC are all among those impacted, according to Down Detector, a service that records reports of website outages.

The outages, which have also occurred in the US and Europe, are thought to be caused by a glitch in cybersecurity company Crowdstrike's Falcon anti-malware software.

Microsoft Corporation's 365 app were affected for a number of hours today.

The impact saw users of Windows PC’s involuntarily shut down on Friday afternoon, with attempts to restart them being met with a "blue screen of death" telling them that Windows could not load.

At the time of writing, CrowdStrike said their engineering teams were actively working to resolve this issue.

Australia's National Cyber Security Coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, reinforced via an X post that the disruptions were not thought to be caused by a cyberattack.

"I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia this afternoon," she said.

"There is no information to suggest it is a cyber security incident... Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies."

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