Mass IT outage affects airlines, media and banks

BBC

A raft of Australian businesses - including major banks, media outlets and an airline - have reported being hit by a mass IT outage.

Jetstar has been crippled at Sydney airport, supermarkets are experiencing checkout chaos, and broadcast networks have been left scrambling on air as autocue and graphics failed.

Hours before Australia was severely affected, a handful of airlines in the US also reported having to ground planes due to Microsoft IT issues.

The cause of the outage is unclear, but some of those affected have linked it to Microsoft PC operating systems.

Outage website Downdetector shows issues being reported by the National Australia Bank, telecom firm Telstra, Google and more.

An official Microsoft 365 service update earlier in the day said " we're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services", in a statement on Twitter.

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