Australia's spy agency, federal police hit by Microsoft outage

The government has activated an agreement to ensure Australia gets prioritised in restoring services, Burke said.

Australia's spy agency and federal police were among organisations caught up in an outage of Microsoft programmes on Friday, with the government triggering an agreement to ensure priority restoration of services.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft told him it did not believe the outage was caused by a cyber attack. (Reuters)

Users worldwide have been unable to access services for hours, including Microsoft 365, Outlook and Teams. Track live updates on the Microsoft outage here.

At a news conference, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Director-General Mike Burgess and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed their organisations have been affected.

Deep Dive

Which Australian government agencies were affected by the Microsoft outage?

How did Australia seek to prioritise restoration of Microsoft services?

Was the Microsoft outage affecting Australian agencies caused by a cyberattack?

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Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft told him it did not believe the outage was caused by a cyber attack.

The government has activated an agreement to ensure Australia gets prioritised in restoring services, Burke said.

"There is good security work that is done with Microsoft as a business and when it came to the formal cyber agreements which I've signed on behalf of Australia, the first of those was with Microsoft," Burke said at the news conference.

“That agreement has in fact been activated today to make sure that we get appropriate prioritisation of Australian interests in this”.