On Friday, a global technological failure grounded planes knocked banks and hospital systems offline. It took media outlets offline, causing a significant disruption that affected organisations and services all over the world and highlighted reliance on software from a small number of vendors.
DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet service disruptions, reported that airlines, payment platforms, and online shopping websites worldwide were affected — though the disruption appeared to be piecemeal and was related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.
Cybersecurity agencies in the United Kingdom and France have both stated that the global IT outage on Friday was most likely not caused by a hack.
A UK government source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said British cybersecurity experts did not consider it a malicious act.
The French cyber agency also stated that there is “no evidence” that the disruption was caused by cybercriminals.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, indicated that the issue suspected to be causing the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack and that a remedy was on its way. According to the company, the issue arose when an incorrect update was delivered to Microsoft Windows computers.
Newsng gathered that American Airlines Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air grounded flights shortly after Microsoft announced a resolution to the cloud services outage that affected many low-cost carriers.
It was unclear whether the decision to prevent flights from taking off was related to a previous Microsoft cloud outage.
In Australia, media, banks, and telecoms industries experienced interruptions, which the government believes are related to a problem at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.
Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
We earlier reported that the US State Department made a $10 million reward offer for information on the “Blackcat” ransomware group that disrupted insurance payments across the US and targeted the tech division of UnitedHealth Group.
