A widespread cyber disruption has caused significant disruptions to flight operations, banking services, telecommunications, and media outlets.
On Friday, computer systems worldwide were thrown into chaos by a software update, causing flight cancellations, disrupting broadcasting services, and impacting various sectors such as banking and healthcare.
An update to a product provided by the global cybersecurity
company CrowdStrike seemed to be the cause, affecting users of Microsoft's
Windows Operating System. Microsoft later announced that the issue had been
resolved.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz announced on social media
platform X that the company is actively assisting customers affected by a flaw
discovered in a singular content update for Windows hosts. A resolution is
currently being implemented.
"This is not a security incident or cyberattack,"
Kurtz said in the post.
Early on Friday, prominent U.S. air carriers such as American
Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines decided to cancel flights,
causing inconvenience to passengers. Meanwhile, various other airlines and
airports globally experienced delays and operational issues.
Financial institutions and banking services spanning from
Australia to India and Germany issued alerts to their clients regarding
potential disruptions. Traders in different markets also encountered
difficulties in carrying out transactions.
"We are having the mother of all global market
outages," one trader said.
In the United Kingdom, doctors' booking systems were
reported to be offline by several medical officials on X. Additionally, Sky
News, a prominent news broadcaster in the country, issued an apology for their
inability to broadcast live. Furthermore, Manchester United football club
announced on X that they had to delay the release of tickets.
Microsoft's cloud division, Azure, acknowledged the problem
affecting virtual machines running Windows OS and the CrowdStrike Falcon agent,
which were getting stuck in a "restarting state" during a worldwide
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.
An advisory was sent to clients at 0530 GMT on Friday by
CrowdStrike, informing them that its "Falcon Sensor" software was
triggering Microsoft Windows to crash and show a blue screen, commonly referred
to as the "Blue Screen of Death". Additionally, they provided a
manual solution to fix the problem.
CrowdStrike, a U.S. company, stated in a promotional video
earlier this year that more than half of Fortune 500 companies utilize their
software.
Ciaran Martin, a Professor at Oxford University's Blavatnik
School of Government and former head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre,
expressed that this illustration highlights the vulnerability of the world's
core Internet infrastructure.
The disruptions spread extensively.
Airports in Singapore, Hong Kong, and India reported that
the disruptions led to manual check-ins for some airlines.
Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, a major European hub,
confirmed being impacted, while Iberia airline mentioned resorting to manual
operations until their electronic check-in services were back online. Although
there were delays, there were no flight cancellations.
Air France-KLM also experienced operational disturbances.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to the Dutch
press agency ANP that it had been impacted. A representative was not
immediately available to provide further details.
While some companies reported gradual restoration of their
services, analysts assessed the potential implications of what one expert
referred to as the largest industry-wide outage on record, considering its
broader economic impact.
Ajay Unni, CEO of StickmanCyber, one of the leading
cybersecurity service providers in Australia, highlighted the fact that IT
security tools are meticulously designed to ensure seamless business operations
in the event of a data breach. Consequently, causing a global IT outage would
be a disastrous outcome.