What's Behind the 'Large-Scale' IT Outage Around the World?
On Friday, July 19, a far-reaching information technology (IT) outage was detected in different parts of the globe, affecting various industries in the process. Among them are flights in the United States and Germany, television broadcasting in the United Kingdom, and telecommunications activities in Australia.
U.S. carriers like Delta and American Airlines had to delay flights over the said technical issues, based on a release by the Federal Aviation Administration (close to 3,000 flights are reportedly canceled across the nation). Likewise, authorities at the Berlin Brandenburg airport in Germany pointed to the same troubles. "There are delays to check-in, and flight operations had to be canceled until 10:00 am (0800 GMT)," a spokeswoman for the group told Agence France-Presse (AFP). She also didn't specify when their operations would continue.
The said disruptions have affected Spain, Hong Kong, and Australia, plus train routes in the United Kingdom. In the case of Australia, a National Cyber Security Coordinator said in a report by AFP that the "large-scale technical outage" was primarily due to a "third-party software platform."
A global technical outage has impacted some airline operations and terminal services.
— Sydney Airport (@SydneyAirport) July 19, 2024
Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening.
We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to our terminals.…
Meanwhile, Cebu Pacific and AirAsia in the Philippines have released separate statements on their own technical troubles.
"Cebu Pacific advises its passengers that it is currently experiencing technical issues, reportedly related to technology provider CrowdStrike, which caused a global Microsoft system outage. This is a developing situation," the carrier explains. "The technical issue requires us to handle affected processes manually, potentially causing delays. We are working closely with our teams to mitigate disruptions to our operations and will provide regular updates as the situation progresses."
AirAsia Communications and Public Affairs Head and First Officer Steve Dailisan said that the problems in their Microsoft services persist. The disruptions affected the check-in processes, kiosks, and the carrier's app. "AirAsia is closely monitoring the situation and is in constant communication with Navitaire (AirAsia's partner) and Microsoft," he notes.
On the flip side, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport's international flights weren't affected by the disruptions. "As of 1600H, international carriers at NAIA remain unaffected," he Manila International Airport Authority notes.
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Banks have apparently been affected, too. The United Kingdom's Sky News reports that it ended its morning broadcasts. Australia's ABC, similarly, said it was experiencing its own outage. In New Zealand, banks and computer issues also reported the same problems.
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) also issued an advisory on the matter.
"Microsoft reported an ongoing global issue affecting computer units. This issue has impacted certain operations in the bank which may cause longer wait times in our branches and contact center," it says.
"You may also experience delays in crediting of financial transactions including bills payment and interbank fund transfers as other institutions are likewise affected. Our technical team is already coordinating closely with the provider on the resolution of this issue."
Metrobank would also report unavailability among users for some online banking services. "We are closely monitoring the situation and will resume normal operations for the affected services as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding," it announces.
BPI and Metrobank branches, ATMs, CAMs, online, and mobile banking services, nevertheless, remain available.
Australian telecommunications firm Telstra, on the other hand, pointed to Microsoft and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Microsoft, for its part, said that it would be taking action in response to the complaints.
The Reason Behind the Outage
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
The incident follows a day when Windows-powered laptops experienced the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death." The cybersecurity company would end up having compatibility issues with the configurations.
CrowdStrike points to a sensor configuration update to its Falcon system for the "logic error" that would effectively lead to the crash. Falcon is a cloud-based platform that is meant to block cyberattacks.
“CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon sensor,” the company said in a statement on its website. “Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon sensor. Our engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket.”
Microsoft, on the other hand, said in a post: "While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services."
Fortunately, there were no reports of any malicious intent. So customer data is still safe. Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz would reassure customers that it is still searching for the root cause. The technical report can be viewed in the link below.
As CrowdStrike continues to work with customers and partners to resolve this incident, our team has written a technical overview of today’s events. We will continue to update our findings as the investigation progresses. https://t.co/xIDlV7yKVh
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 20, 2024
This is a developing story—more details to follow.
