- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has gone on leave
- Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil issued warning
Anthony Albanese is taking a five-day holiday in Queensland after warnings that scammers are targeting Australians following the worst IT crash ever.
The start of the prime minister’s holiday coincided with the CrowdStrike software upgrade, which caused widespread disruptions and shut down airlines, banks and supermarkets.
Fiona Sugden, spokeswoman for Albanese, told Daily Mail Australia that acting Prime Minister Richard Marles would be in charge as the Prime Minister was kept constantly informed.
“The Prime Minister will be on leave for five days from Saturday 20 July 2024,” she said.
‘During this period, the Deputy Prime Minister will be acting Prime Minister.’
Mr Albanese went on leave after Home Affairs and Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil warned of the biggest IT blunder ever.
“In terms of the size and scope of this event, this is the largest IT outage in history,” she said.
“It’s certainly plausible that it is. It’s certainly the largest in my lifetime.”
Anthony Albanese takes five-day holiday in Queensland despite warnings that scammers are now targeting Australians after worst-ever IT crash
Ms O’Neil warned that scammers were trying to take advantage of the global chaos caused by the CrowdStrike software update, which had frozen Microsoft and Windows programs worldwide.
“What we are hearing is that small businesses and individuals in particular are receiving emails from people pretending to be CrowdStrike or Microsoft,” she told reporters on Saturday.
‘We are seeing reports of phishing attempts via the incident that just occurred.
“If you see an email or text message that looks a little strange, that has something to do with CrowdStrike or IT outages, just stop looking at it.
“Don’t give any details. If someone called you and said they were going to help you, talk you through a reboot of your system, I would hang up the phone.”
Ms O’Neil said Australians had a civic duty to report such scams, where fraudsters tell individuals and small businesses they must pay to restart.
“I ask all Australians to be very cautious over the coming days about any attempts to use this for scams or phishing,” she said.
“The last thing I want to say is that this is a moment when we can help our fellow Australians.
The start of the prime minister’s break coincided with the CrowdStrike software upgrade, which caused widespread outages, paralysing airlines, banks and supermarkets
‘If someone has tried to scam you, he/she will try to scam others too.’
People who have accidentally provided information to scammers are urged to contact their bank immediately.
“If you have provided personal information, contact your bank and let them know you are concerned about a phone call or email you may have responded to,” Ms O’Neil said.