A global tech outage disrupted operations in multiple industries on Friday, affecting airlines, broadcasters, and sectors ranging from banking to healthcare.
American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air grounded flights, citing communication problems. This came shortly after Microsoft claimed to have resolved a cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers, though it was unclear if these events were connected.
“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United. While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” United said in a statement. “Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”
Also Read: FIA Alerts Women About Cybercriminals Targeting WhatsApp Accounts
Australia’s government reported that outages experienced by media, banks, and telecom companies appeared linked to an issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. An alert from Crowdstrike indicated that its “Falcon Sensor” software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash, displaying the infamous “Blue Screen of Death.” The alert, sent at 0530 GMT on Friday, included a manual workaround.
A Crowdstrike spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator Michelle McGuinness stated there was no information to suggest the outage was a cyber security incident.
The outages had widespread effects. The travel industry was particularly hard hit, with airports around the world, including those in Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin, and several Spanish locations, reporting system problems and delays. International airlines like Ryanair warned of issues with booking systems and other disruptions.
In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, and Sky News, a major broadcaster, was off air, apologizing for being unable to transmit live. Financial institutions from Australia to India and South Africa alerted clients about service disruptions, and LSEG Group reported an outage of its data and news platform Workspace.
Amazon’s AWS cloud service provider acknowledged it was “investigating reports of connectivity issues to Windows EC2 instances and Workspaces within AWS.”
It was not immediately clear whether all reported outages were linked to Crowdstrike problems or if there were other issues at play.
