Australia warns of malicious websites after cyber outage

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s cyber intelligence agency said on Saturday that “malicious websites and unofficial code” were being released online claiming to aid recovery from Friday’s global digital outage, which hit media, retailers, banks and airlines.

Australia was one of many countries affected by the outage that caused havoc worldwide after a botched software update from CrowdStrike.

On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) – the country’s cyber intelligence agency – said “a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident”.

On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre “strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only”.

Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil said on social media platform X on Saturday that Australians should “be on the lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts”.

Friday’s outage hit Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s largest bank, which said some customers were unable to make PayID payments, an issue later resolved. National airline Qantas and Sydney airport said planes were delayed but still flying.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said late on Friday that there had been no impact to critical infrastructure, government services or emergency phone systems.

CrowdStrike – which previously reached a market cap of about $83 billion – is a major cybersecurity provider, with close to 30,000 subscribers globally.

(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Sam Holmes and William Mallard)