A major digital outage has impacted businesses and institutions across numerous countries, causing mayhem in airlines, government systems, banks, supermarkets, telecoms, and media stations.
The source of the outage was not immediately known, although it occurred hours after Microsoft announced that it was fixing a problem affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.
The disruptions was blamed on CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity business whose software is used by sectors all over the world to protect against hackers and outside breaches.
The bug appears to cause problems on machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Crowdstrike said in a recorded phone message that it had received reports of Microsoft’s Windows operating system crashing.
According to a Federal Aviation Administration update, major US airlines Delta, United, and American Airlines were grounded on Friday morning owing to a communication issue.
In Australia, flight information screens at Sydney airport went blank and self-service checkouts at supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles showed error messages.
Sydney airport said that flights were arriving and departing but that travellers should expect delays.
Airports in the United Kingdom, Germany, Malaysia and the Philippines also reported disruptions to services.
All airports in Spain were experiencing “disruptions”, the airport operator said.
Air France said its operations were also affected, but that flights already en route were not affected.
Hong Kong Airport Authority said airlines affected by the outage have switched to manual check-in and flight operations have not been affected.
Media stations across the world as well as banks also reportedly affected
Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said on Friday that it was aware of a “large-scale technical outage” affecting numerous business and services across the country.
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