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20-07-2024
LONDON: A massive technology outage has disrupted businesses and institutions in multiple countries, throwing airports, airlines, rail companies, government services, banks, stock exchanges, supermarkets, telecoms, health systems and media outlets into chaos.
The disruption was caused by an update to a product offered by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which had caused machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system to crash.
Reporting from London, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull said, “CrowdStrike seems to have had some sort of mandatory update to its software that went horribly wrong.”
The company had reported that the issue was related to its Falcon sensor product, engineers identifying a “content deployment problem”, said Hull.
“Essentially it happens as you’re sitting in front of your terminal. If your terminal is a Microsoft Windows terminal, it suddenly goes to a blank blue screen. It’s called the ‘blue screen of death’ error. You are locked out of your operating system,” Hull said.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on Friday that the company was “actively working” with customers who had been impacted by “a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts”.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” he said, posting on X.
Microsoft said on Friday that the “underlying cause” of the global outage had been “fixed”, but the “residual impact” was continuing to affect some Office 365 apps and services.
At the time of reporting, some of the malfunctioning business, companies and computer app systems were beginning to return to normal service, including Sky News in the United Kingdom, which was down for an hour in the morning.
The outages rippled far and wide, with transport systems around the world among the hardest hit.
In the United States, major airlines Delta, United and American Airlines were grounded on Friday morning due to a communication issue, according to an update by the Federal Aviation Administration.
In Australia, flight information screens at Sydney airport went blank. The airport said that flights were arriving and departing but that travelers should expect delays.
Melbourne airport said that check-in procedures for some airlines had been affected.
Airports in the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Malaysia and the Philippines also reported disruptions to services.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, one of Europe’s busiest hubs, was also hit, with a spokesperson saying: “The outage has an impact on flights flying from and to Schiphol,” adding that it was not yet clear how many flights were affected.
All airports in Spain were experiencing “disruptions”, the airport operator Aena said.
Air France said its operations were also affected, but that flights already en route were not affected.
Hong Kong Airport Authority said airlines affected by the outage have switched to manual check-in and flight operations have not been affected.
Kenya Airways’s booking system was impacted, the airline said, warning customers to expect slower service than usual.
Multiple other sectors were also affected.
Banks and other financial institutions from Australia to India and South Africa warned clients about disruptions to their services.
Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX), said some customers had been unable to transfer money due to the service outage. (Int’l News Desk)
