The Australian arms of global firms including Cadbury owner Mondelez International are scrambling to protect their computer systems amid a global cyber attack.
Mondelez, the Spanish food giant that owns the Cadbury chocolate factory in Hobart, and international law firm DLA Piper, which has offices across Australia, both said their global IT systems had been brought down.
Their computer systems may have been hit by the so-called "Petya" or "Golden Eye" cyber attack that began overnight in Europe and experts have likened to the ransomware virus Wannacry that hit more than 300,000 computers in May.
The latest virus freezes computers until users pay a ransom in Bitcoin.
The federal government is urging local firms and households that suspect they've been hit to report it to the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
Cyber security minister Dan Tehan said no Australian government departments were impacted.
"The virus seems to have been targeted at Europe and has impacted large organisations there and some government departments there aswell," he said in a press conference.
"There is no reports whatsoever of any government departments or organisations at the federal or state level being impacted here in Australia, although there are reports in Europe of government departments impacted."
Banks, airports and the state power company in Ukraine were among the first to be hit in the latest attack, followed by Russia's biggest oil firm Rosneft, Danish shipping giant Maersk, US drug maker Merck, London-based advertising firm WPP and French construction firm St Gobain.
