Global outage: Geelong impacted by major technology crash

A global technology outage is still putting pressure on major services across Geelong including, airlines, banks and news outlets.

A global technology outage is still putting pressure on some services across Geelong on Saturday.

The widespread issue caused chaos and confusion across the city on Friday, stopping flights and public transport, hitting multiple shops and banks, leaving customers unable to pay and forcing some businesses to close.

Across the country flights were grounded and many businesses were reporting the “blue screen of death” as computers failed.

Media organisations and airlines were among the worst affected.

Regular services have resumed across all V/Line trains in Geelong on Saturday, with commuters told to check timetable schedules as normal.

At Avalon Airport there had been no flights since 2pm on Friday with three flights to Sydney, one to Brisbane and one to the Gold Coast all grounded.

Frustrated travellers were sitting at the airport unsure of what lay ahead with no clear no information on the situation.

There was confusion at Geelong’s train station yesterday afternoon, with some football fans hoping to travel to Melbourne for last night's AFL game between Essendon and Adelaide left stranded. However, after long delays, a train did depart the station about 5.45pm.

A V/Line spokesman said the major delays were caused after the regional network was put on hold.

“We thank passengers for their patience and understanding while trains were suspended across the network due to a communications fault caused by a widespread external communications outage late this afternoon," he said.

"Delays up to 120 minutes are expected as we work to restore services as quickly and safely as possible."

It’s understood Barwon Health’s clinical services were not affected but broader impacts at the organisation were not yet clear, according to a company spokesman.

Some medical centres closed their doors.Issues were reported at supermarkets from Ocean Grove to Lara. Kmart in Belmont was reportedly closed for an extended period because items could not be scanned at the registers.

It reopened its doors before 6pm.Many stores across the city put up hastily handwritten signs, saying they could take cash only – including Coles in Lara, KFC in Westfield Geelong and the Village Cinema in the CBD.

Several stores, including liquor outlets in the city’s north and CBD, were shut.Long queues formed at Woolworths on Shannon Avenue as the outage first hit with many customers unable to pay.

The effects appeared very inconsistent with some businesses operating as normal.

At some supermarkets only some registers were closed.There were reports McDonald’s outlets were affected but Geelong’s CBD store was operating as normal.

Kylie (right) Emily (centre) and Henry (front) pictured with Kylie's mum Chris Huismann waiting at Avalon

Kylie Hayes and her children Henry and Emily had been waiting at Avalon since 3pm to catch their flight home to Sydney.

They had been visiting family in Geelong during school holidays for just over a week.

Ms Hayes  said she wasn’t aware of the outage before arriving at the airport.

“When we first arrived we thought it was just Jetstar’s system then we found out it was across Australia and then the world,” she said.

Ms Hayes said the plan was to wait at the airport until they heard any updates.

“The kids’ dad is at home so we haven’t seen him in 10 days and we were excited to but it looks like it will be another night,” she said.

“A positive is if we have to stay we will see my grandma, the kids’ great grandma, who we didn’t have the chance to see.

“Henry will probably miss soccer in the morning too.”

The Andrews family from Ocean Grove were planning to travel by train from Geelong to support Essendon in its clash with Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.

The Essendon supporting Andrews family from Ocean Grove were caught up in chaos trying to get to the football in Melbourne by train from Geelong.

After mixed messages from staff at the train station, the family decided to go by car and hurried from the station.

Moments after they left a train departed.

Companies across the globe are experiencing mass system crashes - including Australian media outlets, casinos, big four banks and tech companies. 

Outages have been reported in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and India.

It is believed the worldwide outage was the result of a failure with a software security company Crowdstrike, which aims to stop computers being hacked.

Star Casino in Sydney came to a standstill on  afternoon, as well as newsrooms including the ABC, SBS, News Corp, Nine, and Southern Cross Austereo. 

ABC staff have posted on X informing radio listeners that they are having "major IT problems around the country". "We apologise for any break in transmission or loss of any regular programs," one ABC staffer wrote. According to reports on X, desktops in Microsoft offices began shutting down "automatically" around 2.30pm.

The issue quickly spiralled into worldwide outages.

Aussie banks including, NAB, Suncorp, Bendigo, have also been impacted. Meantime, Jetstar flights were grounded on Friday afternoon, understood to be a result of the outage.

Prime Minister  Anthony Albanese issued a statement.

"I understand Australians are concerned about the outage that is unfolding globally and affecting a wide range of services,” he said. “My Government is working closely with the National Cyber Security Coordinator.

There is no impact to critical infrastructure, government services or Triple-0 services at this stage.

“The National Coordination Mechanism has been activated and is meeting now."

Top cyber security expert Alastair MacGibbon said the outage appeared to have been caused by a “process failure” at Crowdstrike.

Mr MacGibbon, Chief Strategy Officer at CyberCX, said the company appeared to have pushed out some bad code effectively “bricking” computers around the globe.

It took almost three hours for the first worker to turn up to the office of the company at the centre of the tech crisis that has crippled Sydney.

Originally published as Global outage: Geelong impacted by major technology crash