Airlines, broadcasters and banks around the world have been hit by a major technical issue today, according to the BBC. The issue has caused delays and cancellations at many airports, with rail companies in the UK also reporting disruption. Sky News in the UK is among the broadcasters affected.
In the US, major airlines such as United and Delta have grounded flights. In Australia, not only airports but also shops and communications systems have been affected. Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator described it as a major technical failure.
According to Reuters, the incident was caused by a network outage involving global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and Microsoft. Microsoft said it was working to address the “lasting impact” of the incident. The BBC also reported that all signs point to a Crowdstrike issue. If the issue had been Windows-related, the impact would have been much greater.
Meanwhile, the office of Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, said on social media that there was no information to suggest this was a cyber security incident. “We are aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of businesses and services across Australia this afternoon,” Ms McGuinness said.
Ms McGuinness’s office also said the outage was related to a technical issue with a third-party software platform used by the affected companies. A spokesman for New Zealand’s parliament said the country’s computer systems were also experiencing problems. Australia’s state broadcaster ABC said it was experiencing “major network outages” without giving a specific reason.
Spain also reported “computer problems” at all of its airports. Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned of potential disruptions affecting “all airlines operating on the network,” though it did not specify the nature of the disruption.
It is unclear whether all of the reported outages were related to Crowdstrike’s issues, according to Reuters. When Reuters asked for technical support, Crowdstrike played a prerecorded message saying the company was aware of an issue on Microsoft’s Windows operating system involving Crowdstrike’s Falcon sensor.
Reports suggest that Crowdstrike released a software update with a serious bug that crashed Windows devices and led to the “blue screen of death” phenomenon on computers, according to the BBC.