Computer outages affecting airlines and businesses around the world are underway on Friday July 19. If nothing indicates, for the moment, that this is a security incident or a cyberattack, the repercussions of this bug are very numerous.
At the origin of the bug, the malfunction of the security solution of the company CrowdStrike, used by thousands of companies and government customers, specifies CNN. The software in question, called Falcon, normally allows real-time monitoring of all servers and computers on the same computer system.
According to its CEO, George Kurtz, the outage was due to a “flaw” in a “content update”, reports the BBC. George Kurtz thus assured that it “is not a security incident or a cyberattack”. “The problem has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he added late this morning on the social network X.
Hundreds of flights disrupted
Microsoft Windows is one of CrowdStrike’s main customers, and therefore sees the opening and launch of its software hampered. “Users may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The effect is particularly felt in air traffic, since many large airports are blocked, such as Berlin international airport or those of Madrid and Barcelona, while airlines like Ryanair or Air France “declare disruptions on a large number of flights,”
The repercussions are very significant in the United Kingdom, notes BBC. “The majority of GP practices in England are experiencing problems”, and pharmacies are affected. Transport is not spared either, since the main British railway operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, is affected by IT problems and “has to make last minute cancellations”.
Some international leaders spoke out, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who said “the national coordination mechanism had been activated” to deal with the ongoing outages. Elsewhere in the world, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the reason for the outage had been identified and “updates had been released to resolve the issue.”
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