Global Tech Outage Disrupts Multiple Industries, Causes Chaos Worldwide

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A global tech outage disrupted operations across various industries on Friday, grounding airlines, taking broadcasters off air, and affecting services from banking to healthcare.

Major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines, halted flights, while other carriers and airports worldwide reported delays and disruptions early in the day. Banks and financial services firms from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of service interruptions.

In Britain, booking systems used by doctors went offline, and Sky News, a major news broadcaster, was unable to transmit live. Manchester United also announced a delay in the scheduled release of tickets.

Former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, Ciaran Martin, informed BBC Radio that an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike appeared to be affecting operating systems based on Microsoft’s Windows. Microsoft’s cloud unit Azure acknowledged the issue, stating it impacted virtual machines running Windows OS with the CrowdStrike Falcon agent stuck in a “restarting state.”

“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.

An alert sent by CrowdStrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters indicated that the company’s “Falcon Sensor” software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display the “Blue Screen of Death.” The alert, issued at 0530 GMT on Friday, included a manual workaround to fix the issue. CrowdStrike, which serves over half of Fortune 500 companies, did not respond to requests for comment.

There was no indication that the outage was a cybersecurity incident, according to Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness and a British government source.

“The world grinding to a halt because of a global IT meltdown shows the dark side to technology,” said AJ Bell investment analyst Dan Coatsworth. “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.”

The outages had widespread effects. Airports in Singapore, Hong Kong, and India reported manual check-ins due to the outage. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, one of Europe’s busiest, was also affected, while Iberia Airlines operated manually until electronic check-in counters and online check-ins were restored, causing some delays but no cancellations. Air France-KLM also reported disruptions.

The Dutch foreign affairs ministry was impacted as well, according to Dutch press agency ANP. A spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

While some companies began restoring services, analysts discussed the potential impact of what one called the biggest ever outage 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.

Source: Reuters