Acting Prime Minister David Seymour said he’s been briefed on three main issues relevant to New Zealanders affected by the global outage:

• Is it a malicious attack? No, it’s a glitch resulting from a software update from Crowdstrike.
• Is it critical? No. While it is very inconvenient to many people essential services are still working, systems and services are already coming back online as organisations apply the patch provided by CrowdStrike. 
• When will it be over? Organisations and businesses are moving quickly to apply the Crowdstrike patch, and systems are coming back online. Many have recovered their systems or are working to update them in the coming hours. While the fix is a straightforward one, it may take some organisations or systems more time to get back to normal.

“The Government has worked quickly to understand the impacts of this issue and minimise them wherever possible.

“We appreciate the inconvenience this is causing for the public, retailers and businesses. The Government is closely monitoring developments and will continue to provide updates.”

CrowdStrike president George Kurtz said on Friday “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.

“Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

Jetstar said on Friday night it continued to be impacted by a global software issue.

As a result of the outage, all Jetstar Airways flights were cancelled until 2am local time Saturday 20 July.

“The IT outage is impacting multiple Jetstar systems, including the system we use to contact customers and we sincerely apologise for the frustration this is causing.

“Our teams are working on recovery options and we will contact customers with updates as soon as our systems are back online.”

“We’re working with our providers to resolve the issues as quickly as possible and thank customers for their understanding and patience.”

The National Emergency Management Agency said “The Civil Aviation Authority has not reported any flight disruption, but airlines in the UK, US and AUS have grounded some flights. This may cause flow-on effects for NZ flight schedules. If you have travel plans, check with your airline about possible delays or cancellations.”

Fire and Emergency New Zealand said their systems had not been impacted by the outage.

New Zealand IT company Vetta group said “to dispel some inaccuracies – no, Microsoft hasn’t gone down and taken computers offline, and no, Microsoft hasn’t messed up a Windows update.