After clients experienced online blackouts for the third day in a row, there are concerns that Westpac has been the target of a cyberattack.
Millions of consumers were affected by Wednesday’s interruption; one told 7NEWS that their cards were not functioning, so they were unable to access their cash or even pay for gas.
Westpac has not revealed what is behind the ongoing disruptions, which also blocked customers from its mobile app and online services for hours on Monday and Tuesday.
Monash University cyber security professor Nigel Phair described the outages as “extremely rare” and “extremely unusual” for modern banking systems.
7NEWS understands the ongoing issues have been referred to the government’s lead cyber security agency, with the major concern that the big four bank has been compromised.
“When something like that happens, it enlivens the cyber security part of our government,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.
Experts say Wednesday’s disruption has the hallmarks of a “denial of service” (DoS) attack, preventing users from accessing services they would usually be able to.
Westpac has refused to rule out a cyber-attack or hack but did say there has been no risk to customer data or accounts, which fits the “denial of service” theory.
“Money and data are safe enough, it’s the inconvenience that goes with it all,” Phair said.
Customers also pondered whether the bank has a security issue.
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