Global IT Outage Hits Airlines, Banks, and More

Learn about the situation and consequences of the latest global IT outage that affected Windows PCs, airports, banks, and TV stations. Climb in the event and know the position of CrowdStrike.

Overview of the situation

Windows computers around the globe are affected due to a huge IT failure around the world which has affected business, transport, and television broadcasts. Current situation: Regarding the problem, engineers are trying to find a solution. Here is how it works.

What Happened?                    

Approximately at 4 a.m. early Friday morning UK time, hundreds of thousands of Windows 10 computers shut down, showing the ‘blue screen of death.’ The issue arises from CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, anti-hacking software, impacting Microsoft services.

As per the Resources, Shares of CrowdStrike dropped as much as 15% on Wall Street, wiping $12.2bn (£9.5bn) off the value of the business.

Who Is Affected?

The outage has caused widespread disruption: The outage has caused widespread disruption:

• TV Stations: This disrupted the morning show of Sky News as it had to broadcast pre-recorded footage.
• Airports: Berlin Airport halted its operation, along with Ryanair said that there would be significant delays and some passengers waiting on some runways.
• Trains: TFL and Information from the National Rail said several operators faced delays and cancellations including Network Rail.
• Banks and Other Businesses: People have different challenges in terms of offline systems for different institutions.

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Am I Being Cyber Attacked?

At this juncture, everything suggests that it is a software issue on the side of CrowdStrike and not hackers. CrowdStrike accepted the fact but has not explained the exact cause of the problem.

What Is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity technology firm and is currently a company whose worth is more than $80 billion. Their tools: falcon sensors assist in preventing computers from being affected by cyber threats. Daily updates are intended to offset new risks, although this specific update appears to have had the opposite effect.

Impact on Train Services:

Train operating companies like the Network Rail have forecasted long delays and cancellations. Affected operators include:

• Avanti West Coast
• Gatwick Express
• Great Northern
• Great Western Railway
• Hull Trains
• London Northwestern
• Lumo
• Northern
• Southern
• Thameslink
• TransPennine
• West Midlands

Some of the major systems have also been shut down such as the real-time customer information platforms.

Sky News Outage:

The Sky News channel on the morning of March 27 broadcast an error message and airing of recorded videos instead of a live broadcast. Similar problems were observed in other broadcasters, such as the ABC and overseas divisions of Sky.

Conclusion:

The global IT outage shows us how fragile our society’s interconnectivity is. The effects remind the public that engineers are striving to create the familiar digital world, and that cybersecurity is not a peripheral aspect of life. More information should soon be released in the public domain as the matter develops.

Image Credit: AFP/Ralf Hirschberger