The Defence Department was embarrassed yesterday by a major failure of its information technology systems as its website and departmental email systems crashed for most of the day.
Although the Department's website and email services became unavailable some time after 10.30am, the Defence public affairs branch did not issue a statement acknowledging the failure until about four-and-a-half hours later.
Although the Department initially refused to comment on the crash, a spokesman later confirmed the duration and ''network-wide'' extent of the problem.
He said there was no suggestion that the failure was due to external hacking.
Many senior Defence officers including Defence Force head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston appear not to have been immediately affected by the IT system crash as they were enjoying the hospitality at a United States embassy 4th of July reception.
The Defence Department is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading its information technology systems, including the establishment of a new Cyber Security Operations Centre within the top secret Defence Signals Directorate to coordinate responses to cyber threats.
It was not until early evening yesterday that the Defence website was restored to partial functionality.
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