Australia's ‘malicious websites and unofficial code’ warning after Microsoft outage

Australia's cyber intelligence agency said on Saturday that "malicious websites and unofficial code" were being released online claiming to aid recovery from Friday's global digital outage, which hit media, retailers, banks and airlines. Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil said on social media platform X on Saturday that Australians should "be on the lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts". On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate - the country's cyber intelligence agency - said "a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident". On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre "strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only".