Key Points
- A global IT outage sent banks, media organisations, retailers and airports into chaos on Friday.
- It was caused by an error in an update by US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
- Many social media users found humour in the situation.
Computer systems around the globe were hit by an unprecedented IT outage on Friday, with banks, media companies, airlines and shops all impacted and many forced to close.
The outage was caused by an error in an update issued by and impacted Windows users.
But while government officials and IT experts scrambled, social media users, as usual, found humour in the situation.
Some compared the situation to Y2K, a computer programming flaw that was expected to cause global havoc as the year changed from 1999 to 2000.
Others joked about who was behind the outage.
There were also tributes to the IT workers attempting to salvage companies’ systems, and to office workers hoping to get time off.
Is Australia still affected by the outage?
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said on Saturday morning that, with the economy in a “recovery phase”.
Businesses are still cleaning up the mess created by the outage, particularly Jetstar after thousands of people were left stranded by 150 flight cancellations.
Retailers including Woolworths, Coles, Dan Murphy’s, and BWS are open and operational, but some checkouts remain closed and some have altered opening hours.
As the world returns to normal and moves on, we’ll always have the memes.
Additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press
