Banks, restaurants, airlines, the media and more were hit by the outage. (Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Airlines, banks, TV channels and other business across the globe were scrambling on Friday to deal with one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.
Aviation officials in the United States briefly grounded all planes, while airlines elsewhere cancelled or delayed flights, as systems running Microsoft Windows crashed.
Microsoft said the issue began at 1900 GMT on Thursday, affecting users of its Azure cloud platform running cybersecurity software CrowdStrike Falcon.
“We recommend customers that are able to, to restore from a backup from before this time,” the US software giant said in a technical update on its website.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a post on several social media platforms that a fix had been rolled out for the problem, describing it as a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts”.
Experts suggested applying the fix would not be straightforward. And the global nature of the failure prompted some commentators to question the reliance on a single provider for such a variety of services. Shares in CrowdStrike slumped by 20 percent in pre-market trading.
Here is an overview of the main disruptions.
Airports and airlines
Airport operations and flights were a major victim of the outage, which forced delays and cancellations globally.
At Sydney Airport in Australia, flight operations and airport services were affected, creating long queues of passengers trying to reach their destinations.
Hong Kong International Airport also announced that some airlines were affected, and Singapore’s airport also said it had been impacted.
“Due to a global outage affecting IT systems of many organisations, the check-in process for some airlines at Changi Airport is being managed manually,” the airport posted on Facebook.
At Delhi airport, three Indian airlines reported major IT disruptions.
In Europe, Berlin International Airport was blocked on Friday morning before traffic partially resumed at around 11:00 am (0900 GMT).
Flight arrivals were halted at Zurich’s airport before it announced on Friday afternoon that flights could again land, while in Vienna and Budapest, the check-in systems of several airlines had to be operated manually, causing “significant delays”.
Amsterdam-Schiphol airport, a major European hub, was also affected, as were all airports in Spain, causing disruptions at the height of its summer tourism season.
In France, Air France said it was facing IT-related disruption on several of its services, but not at the Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports serving the Olympics host city Paris.
The IT systems of the ADP group, which manages the Paris airports, were unaffected but the breakdown has “had an impact on the operations of the airlines concerned at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly: slowdown in check-in, delays and temporary suspension of certain flight schedules”, the company told AFP.
But Transavia France said it had been forced to cancel nearly 40 flights.
Ireland’s Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline in terms of passenger numbers, warned that it was experiencing a “disruption across the network due to a global third-party IT outage which is out of our control”.
In North America, major airlines including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded all their planes early on Friday because of “communications issues”, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
They later said they were beginning to resume operations after hours-long delays.
Public transport
Britain’s largest rail operator said it was affected by the IT problems, leading to potential last-minute cancellations as companies were unable to access certain systems relating to drivers.
“We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network”, the four lines operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) posted on X.
In Gdansk, northern Poland, the Baltic Hub Container Terminal, a deep-water terminal, also reported disruption before returning to normal.
Financial sector
The London Stock Exchange was hit early by a technical problem affecting its platform for disseminating information to the market.
The FTSE 100, its main index, opened around 20 minutes late
In addition, the applications of several banks were affected in Australia, according to Australian television station ABC.
The problem also affected banks in Ukraine, including the online bank Sense Bank.
In Turkey, Deniz Bank reported disruptions to its customers.
Media
The disruptions also affected the media, such as Australian broadcaster ABC, which said its systems had been paralysed by a “major” problem.
In France, Canal+’s subscriber service explained on Friday morning that it was suffering the “repercussions of a major global technical failure”.
TF1, the leading private channel in France and Europe, was also affected, with its morning show starting several minutes late.
British television channel Sky News saw its broadcasting briefly interrupted.
The Paris Olympics
The IT outage is “impacting Paris 2024’s IT operations” just a week ahead of the opening ceremony for the Summer Games, the Olympic organising committee said.
The accreditation system has been affected, preventing some people from collecting their badges, a source within the organising committee told AFP.
Flight disruptions could also impede the arrival of athletes and delegations.
Other sectors
In Japan, some operations at McDonald’s restaurants were disrupted, and in Australia, self-service checkout terminals at one of the country’s largest supermarket chains displayed error messages.
In the Netherlands, several hospitals reported being affected by the outage, leading to the closure of an emergency department and the postponement of operations.
Britain’s government activated its civil contingencies committee as general practitioners (GPs) across Britain were unable to access patient records or book appointments.
A National Health Service (NHS) spokesperson said there was an issue with its appointment and patient record service “causing disruption in the majority” of GP services.
© Agence France-Presse