Albo's shock announcement as Aussies are warned to beware of rash of cruel scammers after global IT crash

Anthony Albanese is taking a five-day holiday in Queensland amid warnings scammers are now targeting Australians in the wake of the world's worst-ever IT crash.

The start of the Prime Minister's break coincided with CrowdStrike software upgrade causing widespread outages, crippling airlines, banks and supermarkets.

Mr Albanese's spokeswoman Fiona Sugden told Daily Mail Australia Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles would be in charge as the PM was continually briefed.

'The Prime Minister will be on leave for five days from Saturday 20 July 2024,' she said.

'During this time, the Deputy Prime Minister will be Acting Prime Minister.'

Mr Albanese went on leave in Queensland, where temperatures are warmer in winter, as Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil issued warnings about the world's worst-ever IT bungle.

'As for the size and scope of this event, this is the biggest IT outage in history,' she said. 

'It is absolutely plausible that that's the case, certainly, the largest in the time that I've been alive.' 

Ms O'Neil warned scammers were trying to capitalise on the global mayhem caused by CrowdStrike's software update that has frozen Microsoft and Windows programs globally.

'What we are hearing is that some small businesses, in particular, some individuals are receiving emails from people who are pretending to be CrowdStrike or who are pretending to be Microsoft,' she told reporters on Saturday. 

'So, what we are seeing some reporting of is attempts to conduct phishing through the incident that's just occurred.

'If you see an email, if you see a text message that looks a little bit funny, that indicates something about CrowdStrike or IT outages, just stop.

'Don't put in any details. If someone has called you, suggesting they are going to help you, talk you through a reboot of your system, I would hang up the phone.' 

Ms O'Neil said Australians had a civic duty to report such scams where scammers were telling individuals and small businesses they needed to pay money for a reboot.

'I ask all Australians to be really cautious over the next few days about attempts to use this for scamming or phishing,' she said.

'The final thing is to report: this is a moment where we can help our fellow Australian citizens.

'If someone has tried to scam you, they are trying to scam others.' 

Those who have mistakenly given details to scammers are urged to contact their bank straight away. 

'If you have given away some personal information, just make sure that you're contacting your banking institution and making sure that you let them know that you're concerned about a phone call or an email that you might have responded to,' Ms O'Neil said.