Global IT outage hits New Zealand banking services, flights, transport, supermarkets

Customers queue at Woolworths Hobsonsville amid problems created by a global IT outage tonight.

• LATEST: CrowdStrike causes global chaos: IT systems back online, but full restoration could take days, concern about ongoing banking issues
• There are reports of major IT network outages across the world tonight
• New Zealanders are reporting issues with banking and transport services, including delayed flights
• Shops and supermarket checkout systems have gone down and some Woolworths stores have closed
• People fuelling their cars this evening have been told to use cash
• The issue is believed to have been caused by an update by cyber security firm CrowdStrike
• Acting PM David Seymour says officials are moving “at pace” to understand the potential impacts of the global issue, which doesn’t appear to be related to “malicious cyber security activity”

A global IT network outage is causing chaos tonight, downing banking services, disrupting flights, preventing supermarket purchases and causing havoc for public transport users.

There are reports of outages involving some nationwide bank payment systems this evening, as well as global network problems with television and Microsoft services.

The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded flights from several major US carriers, including Delta, United and American Airlines, due to communication issues.

Herald readers have spoken of queues at supermarkets due to checkouts going down and commuters being unable to tag on or tag off with Auckland Transport Hop cards.

Issues with debit and credit cards including ASB, ANZ and Kiwibank are being reported.

ANZ FastPay Tap and Visa payWave are also reported to be down.

The Herald has tried approaching the Banking Association for comment.

ASB confirmed several of its services were down due to “an external vendor issue” that had hit telecommunications and banking companies worldwide.

BNZ and Westpac told the Herald they were not experiencing any issues with their internet banking or payment systems.

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Herald readers have reported problems at supermarket checkouts tonight and similar problems at other shops.

A man at Woolworths Hobsonville said there were queues of people having trouble at the checkout due to eftpos issues.

There are reports from Newstalk ZB listeners of the outage impacting customers at Mitre 10 and Bunnings in Hamilton, SBS Bank and Zero.

A person texted NZME to say Auckland Transport’s tag-on, tag-off terminals are not working either.

BREAKING: The catastrophic IT failure is already being labelled the ‘biggest in history’ by some tech experts. Computers, running Microsoft Windows, have shut down right across the globe. https://t.co/5zYfOfGqUb #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/WPFoMrpsWq

— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) July 19, 2024

The Herald understands Jetstar has been impacted by the global IT glitch.

A Herald reader says Jetstar announced over the loudspeaker in Wellington Airport it was delaying flights due to the outage.

Christchurch International Airport said flights may be disrupted due to IT issues there.

Air New Zealand told the Herald it was not aware of any operational impacts at this stage.

Auckland Airport said all systems are operating as normal and there have been no check-in issues.

A police spokeswoman said they were unaware of any issues with their services, as did Fire and Emergency NZ.

Acting Prime Minister David Seymour said officials were aware of a reported Microsoft outage causing disruption globally.

”I have not currently received any reporting to indicate these issues are related to malicious cyber security activity. We are moving at pace to understand the potential impacts of this, which is a global issue.”

He understood that emergency service lines were not impacted.

”Officials are working to ensure that impacts on lifelines services are minimised and national co-ordination structures are activated if required.

“We appreciate the inconvenience this is causing for the public, retailers and businesses. Officials across relevant government agencies are monitoring developments and will provide updates as organisations around the world work on fixing the issue.”

Seems to be a current worldwide @CrowdStrike issue causing BSOD. Seen reports form NZ, AU, Japan, India.

Some servers and devices are not resuming correctly and are getting stuck in boot loops#crowdstrike #bsod

— Jeff M 🇳🇿 (@jeffmorgannz) July 19, 2024

Television channels, including Sky News Australia, have also gone off air, with the Daily Mail reporting it had been hit “with an ongoing technical issue”.

There have been reports of computers running on Microsoft Windows having crashed worldwide, with users saying their computers were displaying a blue screen of death (BSOD).

The Wall Street Journal posted on X that Microsoft was reporting a service outage for its Microsoft 365 apps and services, affecting businesses and users across the world.

Windows computers are reportedly showing BSOD errors across various different sectors, including supermarkets, banks and broadcasters.

Reports of outages have been made online via the Downdetector website, showing issues with Microsoft 365 services.

The issue is reported to be linked to an update by cyber security company CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike said its “engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue”.

Sky reported CrowdStrike had gone down.

“Was bloody chaos down at the supermarket,” a Herald reader wrote on social media.

“The self-checkouts all started running into errors and resetting themselves too. By the time I got to the front of the line there were only two or three that remained working.”

Another person wrote: “Curious about the reports of BSOD crashes with computer systems. I went into Chemist Warehouse today and Woolies and both had at least one computer system with a BSOD problem, with the Chemist Warehouse one stuck in a reboot and BSOD loop. Weird.”

Police are aware of the current system outage.

For emergency situations, please dial 000.

— NSW Police Force (@nswpolice) July 19, 2024

A New Zealander holidaying in Fiji told the Herald he has been unable to access his funds through ASB Bank for the past two hours and was not able to reach the bank for answers.

Another Herald reader says Kiwibank cards and eftpos are not working tonight.

Kiwibank said it was aware of an issue logging into internet banking and app.

Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted. We appreciate your patience.

— Frontier Airlines (@FlyFrontier) July 19, 2024

- More to come