Businesses and other organisations were dealing with backlogged orders, cancelled bookings and postponed travel plans on Saturday, a day after a technical outage disrupted computer systems around the world for several hours.
A major outage affecting devices running Microsoft Windows on Friday affected tens of millions of people from Brazil to Japan, cancelling thousands of flights, halting banking services and taking some television channels off the air.
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that caused the outage, blamed the problem on its own software after releasing a patch, and CEO George Kurtz told CNBC that he “want to personally apologize to every organization, every group, every individual that was affected.”
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Technology experts said they expected the disruptions to continue into the weekend as companies struggle to update their IT systems.
CrowdStrike warned that it could take some time for all customers to install fixes and reboot their entire computer networks.
More than 5,000 of the more than 110,000 commercial flights have been canceled so far due to the outage, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Airlines said they expected further flight delays as service was restored, particularly for those affected by the outage.
In Europe, major airports including Berlin, which halted all flights on Friday morning, said departures and arrivals were gradually resuming by the evening.
Spanish airport operator Aena, which had earlier reported an incident in its computer systems, said by the afternoon that its IT systems had been restored and were up and running again.
Airports across Latin America were asking passengers to arrive to their flights several hours earlier than usual.
Medical groups said reports from the United States, the Netherlands and Britain suggested health services were expected to be affected by the outages, leading to disruptions to appointments and medicine supplies.
Cybersecurity experts criticize CrowdStrike
Cybersecurity expert Sven Herpig told DW that despite the recovery, it will be “a long time” before life returns to normal.
The head of the cybersecurity company that caused the crisis said he apologized for the confusion caused by a flawed software update, and Helpig said, “This update should never have passed quality testing, so our inference is that they either didn’t do quality testing or they didn’t do it correctly.”
Helpig also said there was no guarantee something like this wouldn’t happen again.
“We can regulate it, but at the end of the day, it could happen again and we’ll see it happen again in our lifetime.”
Power outages affect millions
Microsoft said the issue began on Thursday and began affecting Windows users running the CrowdStrike Falcon cybersecurity tool.
Businesses and governments around the world experienced hours of disruption as affected computers began displaying “blue screen” error messages.
Air travel was hit immediately, with airport operators from Amsterdam to Zurich, Singapore to Hong Kong reporting technical issues that disrupted services. Some airports grounded all flights, while at others airline staff had to check in passengers manually. Long queues formed at airports across Asia, the US and Europe.
Banks, hospitals and financial services companies warned customers of the disruption, traders across markets said they were having trouble executing trades, and several television stations, including Britain’s Sky News and Australia’s ABC, pulled their broadcasts.
Companies were left scrambling to repair their systems and assess the damage, even as authorities tried to rule out any possible foul play and quell panic.
CrowdStrike said within hours of the outage that it was not the result of a security incident or cyberattack, and Kurtz said in a statement that his team was “fully mobilized” to help affected customers and that “fixes have been deployed.”
Experts said Friday’s turmoil was a reminder that the deployment of software from just a handful of providers can make IT systems around the world vulnerable.
Thousands of businesses rely on CrowdStrike for their security needs.
mm/sms (AFP, AP, DPA, Reuters)
