The Internet banking service has been inaccessible to customers for more than 24 hours, while the bank rushes to identify the system fault and restore the facility.
In the last week, 100,000 online customers were reported to have experienced a listless service or could not log on at all, forcing the bank to pull the site offline in order to locate the source of the problem.
Westpac refuses to reveal the cause of the system error.
-We're upgrading the level of code in the servers so that the computers can talk to each other," Westpac's David Lording told ZDNet.
The bank is unsure of when the service will be up and running for customers again.
Westpac Banks Internet service problem follows a recent ZDNet Australia report that the Commonwealth Bank's online banking system was allegedly brought down as a result of a security breach.
Following the attack on the Commonwealth Bank's Internet service, an Australian security analyst said that a staggering 20 banks were victims of hackers in the last year alone.
Yes, banks are responsible for ensuring 100% reliable service but we are seeing the emergence of two realities that are uncomfortable to confront:
1. The limits of complex technology to truly deliver 100% up-time. It could well be that we can always push those limits farther out, but never to infinity. But the further we push that boundary, the higher the cost of any failure.
2. Malicious/Criminal elements will always keep in step with security technologies. The only change is that the stakes keep getting higher. Current penalties for hacker/cracker activities are not pulling enough weight in this conflict.