Global cyber outage disrupts flights, Banks, telecoms, Media

A global technology outage on Friday caused widespread disruptions across various industries, grounding flights, taking broadcasters off the air, and affecting services ranging from banking to healthcare.

Major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines, grounded flights, while other carriers and airports worldwide experienced delays and disruptions early on Friday. Banks and financial services firms from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of service interruptions.

In the UK, medical booking systems were offline, according to reports from medical officials on X (formerly Twitter). Sky News, a major British news broadcaster, went off the air, issuing an apology for the inability to transmit live. Additionally, Manchester United announced on X that it had to postpone a scheduled ticket release.

Ciaran Martin, the former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, informed BBC Radio that the issue stemmed from an update to a product offered by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. This update appeared to affect operating systems based on Microsoft’s Windows.

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Microsoft’s cloud unit Azure acknowledged the problem, stating it impacted virtual machines running Windows OS, with the CrowdStrike Falcon agent stuck in a “restarting state” amid the global outage. “We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

CrowdStrike sent an alert to its clients, reviewed by Reuters, indicating that its “Falcon Sensor” software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”

The alert, sent at 0530 GMT on Friday, included a manual workaround to fix the issue. CrowdStrike software is used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, according to a promotional video from the U.S. firm earlier this year. A CrowdStrike spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, stated on X that there was no indication the outage was a cyber security incident. Similarly, a British government source told Reuters there was no evidence of foul play.

AJ Bell investment analyst Dan Coatsworth commented, “The world grinding to a halt because of a global IT meltdown shows the dark side of technology. The severity of the problem boils down to how long it lasts. A few hours’ disruption is unhelpful but not a catastrophe. Prolonged disruption is another matter.”

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The outage had a widespread impact. Airports in Singapore, Hong Kong, and India reported that some airlines had to check in passengers manually. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, one of Europe’s busiest, was affected.

Airline Iberia operated manually at airports until its electronic check-in counters and online check-ins were reactivated, resulting in some delays but no flight cancellations. Air France-KLM also experienced operational disruptions.

The Dutch foreign affairs ministry confirmed it was affected by the outage, although a spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

While reports indicated that companies were gradually restoring their services, analysts considered the potential implications of what some described as one of the largest outages ever in the industry and the broader economy.

“IT security tools are all designed to ensure that companies can continue to operate in the worst-case scenario of a data breach, so to be the root cause of a global IT outage is an unmitigated disaster,” said Ajay Unni, CEO of StickmanCyber, one of Australia’s largest cybersecurity services companies.