IT Outage Update

[uk666]

IT Outage Update

A faulty software update caused the massive IT failures that have caused chaos across the world.

The CEO of the firm which released a software update responsible for the worldwide IT systems failures apologised to the public and promised a fix, but said it could take time for the issue to be completely corrected.

Early on Friday, airlines, banks, and broadcasters globally faltered after an IT glitch caused their services to go offline, with cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike later identified as the source of the issues. People around the world were seen sleeping at airports as they awaited delayed flights, hospitals and GPs cancelled appointments, and some banking services were rendered nonfunctional.

The Texas-based firm has since issued an apology and rolled out a fix to address the issues, but its CEO has warned it could take some time before the situation is fully remedied. In an interview following an apology posted to his X account, George Kurtz said the firm is "deeply sorry" and added that CrowdStrike identified a "software bug" that "caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system".

But he warned that, even with the fix, it would take some time for every service affected to return to running as normal. He said: "It could be some time for some systems, it [won't] just automatically recover. But it's our mission... to make sure that every customer is fully recovered."

Meanwhile, it was reported today how £9 billion was wiped from CrowdStrike's value and $320million (£247m) from Mr Kurtz's personal wealth. Crowdstrike is reported to have a 24 per cent share of the 'endpoint security' market - meaning hundreds of millions of computers were likely affected by the issue.

What did Microsoft say about the IT outage nightmares?
Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an “issue” with its 365 apps and operating systems, and although it said it had recovered some services, warned the issue was ongoing.

Microsoft said on X: “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.

“We still expect users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue.” According to cyber security expert Troy Hunt, an IT issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike was causing much of the outage seen worldwide.

Microsoft recommends turning PC off and on again...15 times. Microsoft has posted a potential fix on its website, suggesting, in short, that people whose computers are still struggling with issues try "switching it off and on again".

The software firm has suggested that people with virtual PCs - which are not in the same place as the monitor - try rebooting them. In some cases, it has warned, the fix may take more than a dozen tries to implement.

Times Square billboards blank as 'result of the outage'
Billboards on New York City’s Times Square went blank earlier, with the outage believed to be the cause. Several of the more than 100 screens were blank, instead of showing the usual array of colourful advertisements.

Disruption not caused by malicious cyber attacks
The National Cyber Security Centre has ruled out “malicious cyber-attacks” being the cause of today’s nightmare scenario.

Formula One not immune to worldwide outages
The massive global outages have also affected one of the Formula One teams at this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Ahead of first practice in Budapest, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes team had issues, with its pitwall the last thing to be brought online ahead of running, said pitlane reporter Ted Kravitz.