AIRLINES, BANKS AND other companies impacted by yesterday’s global cyber outage are recovering today, but experts have warned it could take weeks until the world’s technology is back to normal.
Yesterday cyber-security firm CrowdStrike said that the global outage was as a result of an issue in an update to its Falcon antivirus software, designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks.
The company yesterday confirmed the issue had been fixed and stressed that the outage was not a cyber attack and that there was no risk of a data breach. It was simply a technical error with far-reaching implications.
Industry expert Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could even take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.
“The fix will have to be applied to many computers around the world. So if computers are getting blue screens and endless loops, it could be more difficult and take days and weeks,” he said.
Flight delays and cancellations are among the disruption expected to continue into the weekend but Dublin Airport was largely unaffected yesterday. It used manual workarounds instead, which exist for this exact scenario.
Passengers with Ryanair, however, were advised to show up to the airport three hours early as the outage had impacted their online check-in processes. This issue has since also been resolved.
Flights at Belfast Airport were largely unaffected yesterday but the systems running their display screens were impacted by a ‘blue screen of death’ – which bricks Windows computers, putting them in recovery mode until a hard reset is complete.
Whiteboards being used at @belfastairport as all the screens are blue. Passenger Martin McElroy took this, and told us that it's like “the dark ages, but to be fair they’re making it work, which you have to give them credit for.” #outage pic.twitter.com/FfSmEHCvuO
— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) July 19, 2024
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologised for the events, saying he is “deeply sorry”.
London’s airports – Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton – were impacted yesterday but the issues have also been resolved today. There are, however, a number of delayed flights in all three airports this morning, according to third-party flight trackers.
Professor Ciaran Martin, the founding chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre in in the United Kingdom, also said it was hard to estimate how long it would take to recover from the outage.
“The underlying problem is fixed and the fixes are being implemented,” he said.
Sky News, who yesterday had to go back to basic and had their presenters read from scripts from sheets of paper rather than an autocue, has fully recovered today it told its viewers.
However, experts in the UK have warned users to “remain vigilant” against potential scams as systems recover. CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz wrote to his customers, warning them of “bad actors” who will attempt to exploit yesterday’s events.
“I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives,” he said in his letter.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2024 and Press Association
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