Computer Science. Global power outage gradually returns to normal

The situation will gradually return to normal this Saturday Huge computer failure This caused serious damage to airports, financial markets, and even caused workers to lose their jobs. The reason: an update of the IT solution of the US cybersecurity organization CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Windows operating system had a flaw.

The latter ruled out a cyberattack or IT security issue. “I want to personally apologize to all the organizations, groups and everyone who was affected by this outage,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on CNBC.

The bug is currently being fixed and does not affect users of Mac and Linux systems. For its part, Microsoft reported an “issue” that caused the blue screen. The US IT giant added: “We recommend that customers follow the recommendations provided by CrowdStrike to correct the situation.”

A failure that will go down in history

“This is one of the rare cases where we’ve seen security software cause such a large outage,” commented cybersecurity expert Kayssar Daher. He added that the fact that “Windows is very common, and so is CrowdStrike” explains the scale of the phenomenon.

“The scale of this outage is unprecedented and will undoubtedly go down in history,” said Junaid Ali, another cybersecurity expert. It “had a direct impact on the user’s computer at the end of the chain, Manual intervention may be required This is a major challenge for IT teams around the world.”

Activity in Asia ‘almost normal’

Many Asian airports reported “normal” or “near normal” flight activity from Friday evening, particularly in South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the Philippines. However, some “legacy issues” that caused delays in Sydney remain, with “five flights” operated by Japanese budget airline Jetstar set to be disrupted on Saturday.

After a period of disruption Olympic IT Operations Paris 2024 activities, including the accreditation system but not ticketing, “resumed normally” on Friday afternoon, according to organizers. “The Paris 2024 computer systems did not crash, so if there are some glitches here or there, it’s the lesser of two evils,” said a senior executive at France’s sports ministry.

Airlines still affected

Many airports and airlines reported problems on Friday. In the United States, 2,400 flights were canceled during the day on Friday, a number that could increase further. “According to our information, flights have been restored across the country, but some congestion remains,” stressed an administration official. While several US companies (American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Airlines, etc.) have resumed operations, their Mexican counterparts seem to be still affected by the outage.

The manager of Paris Airports ADP assured that its computer systems were not affected by the outage. However, the organization acknowledged that there were disruptions at Roissy and Orly airports, the two main entry points for foreign Olympic delegations.

World stock markets fell on Friday amid fears of such a collapse, which also caused the London and Milan indices to be unable to show their rate of change for most of the day. On the New York Stock Exchange, CrowdStrike closed down 11.10% and Microsoft fell 0.74%.