A widespread IT outage on Friday caused significant disruptions across multiple sectors worldwide, affecting airlines, banks, media broadcasts, and telecommunications. The outage, which began early in the morning, led to grounded flights, halted train services, and interrupted news broadcasts, causing chaos in several countries.
In the United States, major airlines such as Delta, United, and American Airlines were forced to ground all flights due to a communication issue. The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the widespread impact on air travel.
Germany’s Berlin Brandenburg Airport also experienced significant disruptions. A spokesperson stated, “There are delays to check-in, and flight operations had to be cancelled until 10:00 am (0800 GMT),” without specifying when normal operations would resume.
Spain’s airport operator, Aena, reported disruptions at all airports across the country due to the IT outage, and Hong Kong’s airport noted that some airlines were similarly affected. The airport authority in Hong Kong linked the disruptions to a Microsoft outage.
In the UK, the largest rail operator warned of potential train cancellations due to IT issues. Social media posts showed long queues at Sydney Airport in Australia, where a spokesperson said, “Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening.”
Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator explained that the large-scale technical outage was due to a problem with a “third-party software platform” and emphasized that there was no evidence of hacker involvement.
In addition to the transportation sector, media companies were hit hard. Sky News in the UK had to end its morning broadcasts, and Australia’s ABC reported a major outage. Supermarkets in Australia also faced problems, with self-checkout terminals displaying blue error messages.
Banks and computer systems in New Zealand’s parliament reported issues, and Australian telecommunications giant Telstra suggested that the outages were related to global problems with software from Microsoft and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Microsoft acknowledged the service issues and stated that it was taking “mitigation actions” to resolve them. “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said on social media.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity and threat intelligence company, was identified as a possible source of the problem. University of Melbourne expert Toby Murray indicated that the issue might be linked to CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform, which monitors computers for intrusions and responds to security threats.
