Aussie broadcast chaos as ABC and Sky News presenters stand in front of blank screens amid worldwide tech outage

A massive outage at Microsoft has left Australian media outlets paralysed, with reporters, presenters and viewers staring at blank screens.

The unprecedented global event, which was blamed on a glitch in CrowdStrike’s security software, hit Australia around 3pm on Friday.

Media organisations including the ABC, SBS, Channel 7, Channel 9, Sky News and News Corp Australia reported problems with their networks.

The ABC was unable to broadcast.

“The ABC is experiencing a major network outage, as are several other media outlets,” a news item on the website reads.

The ABC News anchors were left without autocues and graphics. An ABC News reporter explained that they were unable to translate their vision into the broadcast.

“Somehow the studios and the cameras seem to be working, but I was sitting at my desk writing a script for the news when… the system that we use to produce our news bulletins and the output of our news bulletins crashed,” they said.

Friends on social media who work for different companies are all being hit with the same blue screen appearing on their computers.

It seems like it’s becoming almost impossible to compile and broadcast news.

“I think we’re doing our best right now in the studio and we’re able to reach reporters all over the country. But as far as putting the footage together, we’re having serious problems with the computer systems.”

Radio National Drive presenter Andy Park posted a video on X at 3.54pm showing him standing in front of a console with unresponsive screens.

“Normally I prepare to go on air here at Radio National, but as you can see we are having some pretty big problems with our computers,” Park said.

“The ‘blue screen of death’ issue is not unique to ABC radio networks, but we understand it is a widespread outage related to the CloudStrike software,” he said, listing a number of other major companies experiencing technical issues.

‘We are doing our best to get back on the air today at Radio Nation. It is a busy time as everyone tries to rush to crack the emergency band, which we hope to do to bring you what we know for RN Drive this afternoon.

‘Stay tuned.’

According to Nine, the laptops of dozens of editors and reporters crashed shortly before 4 p.m.

In Melbourne, Nine News had to improvise the start of its 4pm bulletin due to problems with their pre-packaged news packages.

A source at News Corp, Australia’s largest newspaper publisher, said they were also experiencing “blue screens”.

‘Cannot access CMS (content management system) or homepage raking tools. Sending via email.’

Unable to broadcast local content Sky News has cut back to an international Fox News broadcast for an hour.

Sky then began playing a pre-recorded message from reporter Tom Connell, as he faced a blue error screen.

In addition to media, several internet platforms, telecommunications companies, banks, shops and government services have also been affected by the outage.

Huge queues formed as cash registers at Woolworths supermarkets malfunctioned and departure boards at the airport broke, with airline staff advising customers to ‘google’ when their flight was leaving.

According to Down Detector, those affected include Bendigo Bank, NAB, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ, Bank Australia, St George, Adelaide Bank, Me Bank, Bank of Queensland and Visa.

Other services affected include MyGov, NBN, Centrelink, ASX and Australia Post, along with a number of social media entertainment services including Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, X, Xbox, Google Cloud, Open AI and Reddit.

Vodafone, Optus, Aussie Broadband, iiNet and Opticomm are among the telecommunications companies affected by the outage.

The National Coordinator for Cyber ​​​​Security has informed users that the outage was not the result of a hack.

It says: ‘There is no information to indicate that this is a cybersecurity incident.

‘According to our current information, the outage is the result of a technical issue with a third-party software platform used by the affected companies.’

CrowdStrike promises “cloud workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services.”

The CrowdStrike support page posted the following message: ‘CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor.

‘Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheckblue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor. Our Engineering teams are actively working on resolving this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket.

‘Status updates will be posted below as soon as we have more information to share, such as when the issue has been resolved.