go through Robert Greenall, bbc news
U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyBusinesses and services around the world are slowly recovering after a massive IT outage that affected computer systems for several hours on Thursday and Friday.
Businesses, banks, hospitals and airlines were among the hardest hit after cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike released a flawed software update affecting Microsoft Windows.
Crowdstrike’s CEO apologized for the outage and said a fix had been released, but admitted it might take “some time” to get all systems back up and running.
While some airline services are starting to return to normal after thousands of flights were cancelled, operators expect some delays and cancellations to continue into the weekend.
Many businesses are now dealing with backlogs and missed orders, which can take days to resolve.
Health services in the UK, Israel and Germany are also experiencing problems, with some surgeries being cancelled.
The global chaos has raised concerns about the fragility of the world’s connected technologies and the extent to which a single software glitch could have such widespread effects.
According to Microsoft, the problem began at 19:00 GMT on Thursday, affecting Windows users running Internet security software CrowdStrike Falcon, but the full extent of the problem did not become clear until Friday morning.
But by Friday evening, problems had eased in many parts of the world, with many airports saying that while there were still problems with check-in and payment systems, most flights were now operational.
The DownDetector website, which detects sites that may have technical problems, showed that by the end of the day the number of sites in the UK experiencing problems had dropped.
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said on X that the flaw was discovered in a “single content update for Windows hosts.”
“We deeply regret the impact this has had on our customers, travelers and anyone affected by this, including our company,” he told NBC.
“Many customers are rebooting their systems and the systems will be up and running soon.
“It may take some time for some systems to recover automatically, but our mission is … to ensure every customer is fully recovered.”
Microsoft also says that multiple reboots may be required, with some users reporting that it may take up to 15 times to resolve the issue.
Additionally, technical experts say Crowdstrike fixes must be applied to each affected device individually.
Now people may question Crowdstrike’s influence as one of the largest players in the cybersecurity market, and the wisdom of letting a few companies control such a significant part of the industry.
Crowdstrike’s shares fell about 12% on Friday, as rivals SentinelOne and Palo Alto Networks fell.
The problems were first discovered in Australia, with the air travel industry likely to be the worst affected.
There are delays at airports, flights are canceled or delayed, planes are grounded, passengers are stranded, and there are queues.
Some saw extra staff being drafted in to manually check in passengers.
As of 18:00 GMT, aviation data from Cirium showed that more than 4,000 flights (3.9% of the total) had been canceled so far on Friday, although that number may also include flights canceled for other reasons.
Payment systems, banks and healthcare providers around the world have been affected.
It is thought the outages could also have long-term effects as companies struggle to pay workers, especially those paid on a weekly basis.
Some rail companies warned of delays, and broadcasters Sky News and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation both experienced blackouts.
