Global tech outage cripples flight ops, banks, media outlets & business

Frankfurt, NT Bureau: Aglobal technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way.

The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows. But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued — and escalated.

Long lines formed at airports in the US, Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travellers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours.

Hospitals and doctor's offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps. At Hong Kong's airport, Yvonne Lee, 24, said she only found out her flight to Phuket in Thailand was postponed to Saturday when she arrived at the airport, saying the way it was handled would “affect the image of Hong Kong's airport very much.”

Her already short five-day trip would now have to be further shortened, she said. Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed as was the arrival of their uniforms and accreditations, but Games organisers said disruptions were limited and didn't affect ticketing or the torch relay.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world's core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre.

DownDectector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we've come to rely on at critical times are not going to be available. Hospitals, for example, will struggle to sort out appointments and those who need care may not get it.

Our financial system largely safe: RBI

The Reserve Bank said it has made an assessment of the impact of the outage on its regulated entities.

"Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved," RBI said in a statement.

Overall, it said the Indian financial sector in the Reserve Bank's domain remains insulated from the global outage.