Global technology outage disrupts banks, businesses and flights

A world technology outage on Friday paralyzed industries from travel to finance, but services began to return after several hours of disruption, highlighting the risks related to the worldwide shift to digital, connected technologies.

A software update developed by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) is believed to have caused systemic issues which have grounded flights, forced some broadcasters to stop broadcasting and left customers without access to services reminiscent of healthcare and banking.

US President Joe Biden has been informed of the failure, a White House official said.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on social media platform X that a flaw had been found “in a single content update for Windows hosts” that affected Microsoft (MSFT.O) customers and that a fix was being rolled out. Microsoft said in a while Friday that the problem had been resolved.

“We are deeply saddened by the impact that we have had on customers, on travelers, on everyone affected by this, including our company,” Kurtz told NBC News. “A lot of customers are rebooting the system, and it is coming and it will work,” Kurtz said. “It may take some time for some systems to recover automatically.”

CrowdStrike shares fell 14.5% shortly after Wall Street opened, then recovered losses to fall 8.5%. Its cyber rivals rose, with SentinelOne up 3.6% and Palo Alto Networks up 1.7%. Microsoft fell 0.2%.

“This morning, the Crowdstrike update was responsible for disabling multiple Windows systems worldwide. We are actively working with customers to help them recover,” said Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s chief communications officer, in a post on X.

But whilst businesses and institutions began to revive normal services, experts say the cyber outage exposed the risks of an increasingly online world.

“It’s a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s basic internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former head of the U.K.’s National Cyber ​​Security Center. While the underlying problem seemed easy, which must have made it short-lived, its immediate impact was extraordinary, Martin said.

“I’m having trouble imagining a failure of this scale.”

Over the past twenty years, the COVID-19 pandemic has made each governments and businesses increasingly depending on a handful of interconnected technology firms, which explains why one software problem has resonated a lot.

DISRUPTION

Early Friday morning, the biggest US airlines American Airlines (AAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) and United Airlines (UAL.O) grounded flights, while other carriers and airports world wide reported delays and disruptions.

Banks and financial services firms in Australia, India and Germany warned customers of disruptions, and traders across all markets reported problems executing trades.

“We are facing the biggest crash in global markets history,” one trader said.

In the UK, booking systems utilized by doctors were offline, in keeping with multiple reports posted on X by medical officials, while Sky News, one among the country’s major news broadcasters, was taken off air and apologised for not with the ability to broadcast live. Manchester United Football Club said on X it needed to postpone a planned ticket launch.

Airports from Los Angeles to Singapore, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Berlin said some airlines were forced to envision passengers in manually, causing delays.

Government agencies have also been affected. The foreign ministries of the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates reported some disruptions.

As the day progressed, more and more firms reported a return to normal operations, including Spanish airport operator Aena (AENA.MC), U.S. carriers American Airlines, Frontier and Spirit (SAVE.N), the operator of Dubai International Airport and Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA.AX).

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the transportation system appears to be working, and the hope is that by Saturday every little thing can be back to normal. He added that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t look like affected.