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AIRLINES, BANKS AND other companies impacted by yesterday’s global cyber outage are recovering today, but experts have warned it could take weeks until the world’s technology is back to normal.
Yesterday cyber-security firm CrowdStrike said that the global outage was as a result of an issue in an update to its Falcon antivirus software, designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks.
The company yesterday confirmed the issue had been fixed and stressed that the outage was not a cyber attack and that there was no risk of a data breach. It was simply a technical error with far-reaching implications.
Industry expert Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could even take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.
“The fix will have to be applied to many computers around the world. So if computers are getting blue screens and endless loops, it could be more difficult and take days and weeks,” he said.
Flight delays and cancellations are among the disruption expected to continue into the weekend but Dublin Airport was largely unaffected yesterday. It used manual workarounds instead, which exist for this exact scenario.
Passengers with Ryanair, however, were advised to show up to the airport three hours early as the outage had impacted their online check-in processes. This issue has since also been resolved.
Flights at Belfast Airport were largely unaffected yesterday but the systems running their display screens were impacted by a ‘blue screen of death’ – which bricks Windows computers, putting them in recovery mode until a hard reset is complete.
Whiteboards being used at @belfastairport as all the screens are blue. Passenger Martin McElroy took this, and told us that it's like “the dark ages, but to be fair they’re making it work, which you have to give them credit for.” #outage pic.twitter.com/FfSmEHCvuO
— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) July 19, 2024
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologised for the events, saying he is “deeply sorry”.
London’s airports – Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton – were impacted yesterday but the issues have also been resolved today. There are, however, a number of delayed flights in all three airports this morning, according to third-party flight trackers.
Professor Ciaran Martin, the founding chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre in in the United Kingdom, also said it was hard to estimate how long it would take to recover from the outage.
“The underlying problem is fixed and the fixes are being implemented,” he said.
Sky News, who yesterday had to go back to basic and had their presenters read from scripts from sheets of paper rather than an autocue, has fully recovered today it told its viewers.
However, experts in the UK have warned users to “remain vigilant” against potential scams as systems recover. CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz wrote to his customers, warning them of “bad actors” who will attempt to exploit yesterday’s events.
“I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives,” he said in his letter.
Contains reporting from © AFP 2024 and Press Association
I think we should hold onto cash for the foreseeable future.
@brendan hackett: why?
@Pat Hazzard: Because I like the pretty colours.
Seriously Pat!?
@brendan hackett: ATMs are just computers too…
@brendan hackett: I couldn’t tell you the last time I had cash in my pocket or wallet, definitely a few years ago now. Getting on just fine to be honest, never give it a second thought.
@brendan hackett:
I used to count cash as part of my job and the smell off my hands afterwards was horrendous. Cash is completely filthy. I’ll stick to my card.
@Paul O Connor: gives a whole new meaning to ‘filthy lucre’…
@Paul O Connor: children must really love you when trick or treating ar holloweb
Seems brendan’s comment has gone over the head of the normal thinking people….
@Philip Murphy: Ar holloweb. Ooh arr… Been hollowebbing many’s the year …
@brendan hackett: Horrible stuff. Covered in faeces and cocaine…… Thank god for cashless
@Mike Finnegan: filty rich
Cash , nokia and Internet cafe
It’s crazy that this update has gone through engineering, QA. Then has been deployed to demo, tested and later deployed to production and NO ONE managed to find it while testing. People will get fired quickly.
@Alex: likely someone sneaked in a last minute change that wasn’t properly tested.
This begs the question “has our dependence on virtual money and other IT systems gone too far?” Recently our local shopping center lost power and closed as none of the registers would work. If the internet went down we could not validate payment, and the list goes on.
@Niall O’Cofaigh: I think the biggest issue there would be the power going down.
How easy it seems to cause chaos around the word ….putin and Kim are watching this with much interest…
@David Cotter: Those pesky kids and their street slang
Computer says No…
Ireland urged to do more to support underage treatment seekers subject to Scoliosis suffering day in day out under the guise of decades of faux promises.
@Padraic O’ Sullivan: precisely what was announced yesterday with state paying for treatment overseas
@Pat Hazzard: link please Pat. Cheers
I hope it is safe to pay for things online. Safety could be compromised now.
@Sean Money: why would safety be compromised?
@Jack Hayes: well the protection was unavailable for a period if time, which would provide opportunities for any dangerous cyber attack groups to take advantage. We should be weary of what happens next.
@Sean Money: Imagine there’ll be an increase is phising emails etc also. It’s all in a constant state of compromise anyway, I guess.
Sometimes a simple fix can be costly
@Paul1st: Is that Confucius or Wittgenstein?
@Jack Hayes: I remember the time of Y2K where opportunists made fortunes by pushing fear and all it took was a simple check and update of the computers BIOS that any child could do
@Paul1st: There is another possible one in 2038 when 32bit time values roll over.
I’m no computer whizz, but could they not stagger these updates just in case of an error. All the Best.
This is before we are even getting ready for AI looks like it’s already started to invade our brains via our business empires and hence our l private lives salaries ATM holidays basically our whole life and the world we live in not forgetting the journal.
With regard to cash it usually gets smelly when we amas it under the bed and continually counting same.
Y2K finally got us
In the end who will be held responsible for the monkey error of one line of code that hampers that hampers the globe its laughable
If you provide something excellent, people will never need it again. So really it’s good business to be middle of the road.
have your say