Friday morning saw widespread disruption to global businesses’ operations due to significant digital glitches. The outages affected major enterprises, airports, airline carriers, and financial institutions like the London Stock Exchange.
Airline and Airport Disruptions
Airports worldwide faced severe challenges. Melbourne Airport reported a “global technology issue” that hindered check-in procedures for some airlines. Across Europe, Dutch airport Schiphol experienced a “global computer failure” that impacted flights. Similarly, London Gatwick and Berlin Brandenburg airports cited check-in delays due to “global Microsoft issues.”
Ryanair informed passengers via its website that a “global third party IT outage” made booking and check-in services unavailable. Belgian railway companies also reported IT issues affecting their sales channels and online announcements.
Financial Sector and Media Outages
The London Stock Exchange operated normally but could not publish news on its site due to the digital disruption. Major broadcasters, including Sky News, encountered issues that prevented live broadcasts. Several Sky employees took to social media platform X to flag the problems.
Government and Corporate Responses
In response to the widespread outages, a No. 10 spokesperson confirmed that officials held a COBR emergency meeting to address the situation. The European Commission’s spokesperson service acknowledged the cyber incidents affecting various sectors across EU member states and worldwide. However, it noted that its services remained unaffected.
Root Cause and Resolution
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform, which defends against cyberattacks, was linked to the Windows crashes reported by users on Reddit. Microsoft acknowledged experiencing two unrelated issues: one with its cloud platform Azure and another involving CrowdStrike.
In a statement shared with POLITICO, Microsoft confirmed it was “aware of [an] issue affecting a subset of customers” related to Azure. Additionally, it recognized a separate issue affecting Windows devices due to a CrowdStrike update, assuring that “a resolution is forthcoming.”
CrowdStrike also addressed the issue, stating it was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” The cybersecurity firm clarified that Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted and emphasized that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack.” CrowdStrike confirmed the problem had been identified, isolated, and fixed, recommending organizations to communicate through official channels for further assistance.
COMMENTS