CrowdStrike outage: 'Cash is king' supporters get their 'I told you so' moment and can't help but gloat as digital payments crash in massive tech failure

The worldwide outage of Microsoft machines caused widespread chaos, but for cash diehards it was a moment to bask in 'I told you so' vindication as digital payment systems crashed.

Australia was struck on Friday afternoon by a 'bad' software clash between US contractor CrowdStrike and systems running Windows - with online banking services down and supermarkets and other stores advising customers they could only take cash.

On the 'Cash is King' Facebook page, one user posted an image of supermarket automatic registers closed and displaying the 'blue screen of death', which showed they were out of action.

'So when it suits them cash is OK,' the user commented with shrug and laugh emojis.

'Well I'll be damned….once again, it is proven Cash is King,' another user replied.

'Just got home from work... My wife is already asking for cash, it's been a long time since I remember her having to ask me,' another stated.

'What a joke and they want to get rid of cash,' another said. 

There were plenty of other posts and comments claiming vindication.   

'All who had cash today are laughing as the banking system went down,' one person posted. 

'Here is another example of what we are all talking about,' said another.

'Won't the banks and government hate this, they're banging their heads against a wall cos it shows we are right,' another said. 

Another user posted that there was a lesson in the day's events even for those who carried cash.

'Just a reminder that even though cash is best, make sure you have plenty of smaller notes, dollars and small change,' they said. 

'In times like this when businesses that have cut down on cash get an influx of cash users, today has shown they don't have enough small money to accurately give us the correct change as they keep receiving $50 notes. 

'Keep plenty of small stuff aside just for energy by times like this. Hopefully the world wakes up after today but I doubt it..

A number of people on X also were feeling good about using cash.

'Cash is King .. How's your Digital ID going Canberra?' tweeted former Victorian police officer and Liberal Democrat candidate Krystle Mitchell.

'On behalf of all us ethnics who have our cash stashed in the garden. LOLZ (laughing out load),' tweeted The Australian columnist Gemma Tognini. 

'Not just the ethnics.' an X user said in reply.

'Some of us born and bred Aussies were laughing our way to cash registers today too.' 

Retired basketball star Andrew Bogut found mirth in a tweet that showed the harsh reality of doing business without the conveniences of automatic payment. 

'Mc Donald's Berwick is only taking cash and using a old fashioned calculator to work out everyone's change ,' a person tweeted with a number of laughing emojis to which Bogut added a few of his own.

With automatic registers down there were 'massive queues' at some Coles, Woolworths and 7-Eleven stores on Friday.

At Woolworths, the tech crisis caused many, but not all, point of sale checkout machines to fail and be unable to process transactions.

This led to six Woolies temporarily closing, and the supermarket giant said at some locations there were 'less registers available than normal'.

One man posted on X, '90% of my local Woolworths registers had the (blue screen of death). Queues a mile long, absolute chaos. National outage? Local?'

Meanwhile Coles Broadway - one of the biggest supermarkets in Sydney - has sent staff out the front to tell shoppers: 'Cash only. EFTPOS is down.'

Another Coles branch was seen bringing the shutters down as its manager decided to close up for the day.

One frustrated female shopper posted that she had a 'trolley full of groceries & Woolworths announces over the loud speaker they can't accept card at the moment due to a 'Microsoft outage' & can only accept cash. Huh?!!

'Hoping by the time I'm done it's back up & running or I'll be dumping my trolley to run to the nearest ATM.'

A male shopper wrote, 'All the POS machines at both my local and have started crashing one by one. Wondering if it's a widespread issue?'

On X, @Till_Payments posted '#ServiceUpdate: A widespread IT outage is impacting Australian businesses nationwide.' and added a click through for 'live updates as our team works to resolve the issue'.