SYDNEY, July 20 (Reuters) - Australia's cyber

intelligence agency said on Saturday that "malicious websites

and unofficial code" were being released online claiming to aid

recovery from Friday's global digital outage, which hit media,

retailers, banks and airlines.

Australia was one of many countries affected by the outage

that caused havoc worldwide after a botched software update from

CrowdStrike.

On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) - the

country's cyber intelligence agency - said "a number of

malicious websites and unofficial code are being released

claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages

caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident".

On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre

"strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical

information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only".

Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil said on social media

platform X on Saturday that Australians should "be on the

lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts".

Friday's outage hit Commonwealth Bank of Australia ( CBAUF ),

the country's largest bank, which said some customers were

unable to transfer money. National airline Qantas and

Sydney airport said planes were delayed but still flying.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said late on Friday that

there had been no impact to critical infrastructure, government

services or emergency phone systems.

CrowdStrike - which previously reached a market cap of about

$83 billion - is a major cybersecurity provider, with close to

30,000 subscribers globally.