Latest tech failure | Airlines, others race to get back on track after global tech disruption


Transportation providers, businesses and governments rushed Saturday to get all their systems back online after lengthy outages following a widespread technological failure.

The biggest impact is on air travel. Airlines canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many planes and crews in the wrong places, while airports are facing ongoing problems with check-in and security.

At the heart of this massive disruption is Crowd strikea cybersecurity company that provides software to dozens of companies The company says the problem occurred when it rolled out a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, stressing that the issue causing the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

Here is the latest news:

Microsoft: 8.5 million devices running its Windows system were affected

Microsoft says 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected Friday by a flawed cybersecurity update that caused disruptions worldwide.

A blog post published by Microsoft on Saturday gave the first estimate of the extent of the disruption caused by the software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

“We currently estimate that the CrowdStrike update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” Microsoft cybersecurity chief David Weston said in a blog post.

“Although the percentage is small, the large-scale economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by companies that manage many critical services.”

Mr Weston said such a major disruption is rare but “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our vast ecosystem.” Windows is the dominant operating system for personal computers worldwide.

Austrian doctors’ group calls for better protection of patient data

In Austria, a leading doctors’ organisation said the global IT outage had exposed the vulnerability of healthcare systems that rely on digital systems.

“Yesterday’s incidents underline how important it is for hospitals to have analogue backups” to ensure patient care, Harald Mayer, vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Physicians, said in a statement posted on the organisation’s website.

The organization called on governments to impose high standards for patient data protection and security and for healthcare providers to train their staff and put in place systems to manage crises.

“Fortunately, where there were problems, they were limited and short-lived and many areas of care were not affected” in Austria, Mayer said.

Germany warns of scams after major IT outage

BERLIN — The German government’s information security agency says many companies are still dealing with the aftermath of a massive technology outage.

“Many business processes and procedures have been disrupted by the IT systems outage,” the BSI agency said on its website.

But the agency also said Saturday that many affected areas had returned to normal.

He warned that cybercriminals were trying to take advantage of the situation through phishing, fake websites and other scams and that “unofficial” software codes were in circulation.

The agency said it was not yet clear how the faulty code ended up in the CrowdStrike software update blamed for triggering the outage.

European airports appear close to normal

LONDON — Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, said Saturday that it was very busy but operating normally. The airport said in a statement that “all systems are back up and running and passengers are continuing their journeys without problems.”

Some 167 flights scheduled to depart from UK airports on Friday have been cancelled, while 171 flights due to land have been axed.

Meanwhile, flights at Berlin airport were departing as scheduled or almost as scheduled, German news agency dpa reported, citing an airport spokesman.

Nineteen flights took off in the early hours of Saturday after authorities exempted them from the usual ban on night flights.

On Friday, 150 of the 552 scheduled inbound and outbound flights at the airport were cancelled due to the computer outage, disrupting the plans of thousands of passengers ahead of the summer holiday season in the German capital.

German hospital slowly restoring systems after numerous cancellations

BERLIN — The University Hospital of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, which canceled all elective surgeries Friday because of a global computer outage, said Saturday it was gradually restoring its systems.

In a statement on its website, the company expects that operations at its two branches in Kiel and Lübeck will return to normal by Monday and that “elective surgical operations can take place as planned and our ambulances can resume service.”

Britain’s transport system still trying to get back on track

LONDON — Britain’s travel and transportation industries are struggling to get back on track after a global security shutdown, with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer vacation for many schoolchildren.

Gatwick Airport said a “majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.

The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with waits of several hours to enter the port and catch ferries to France.

Meanwhile, the UK’s National Cyber ​​Security Centre has warned individuals and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” attempt to take advantage of the outage.

Former National Cyber ​​Security Centre director Ciaran Martin said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is such that it went wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and was essentially shut down.”

He told Sky News that some businesses could return to normal very quickly, but for sectors like aviation it would take longer.

“In the aviation industry, people, planes and personnel are all stuck in the wrong place… So we’re talking days. I’d be surprised if we were talking weeks.”

German airline expects most flights to operate normally

BERLIN — Eurowings, Lufthansa’s low-cost subsidiary, said it plans to resume “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.

The global computer outage forced the airline to cancel about 20 percent of its flights on Friday, mostly domestic routes. Passengers were advised to take trains instead.

“Online check-in, airport check-in, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are possible again,” the airline said on X on Saturday. “However, due to the significant scale of the global IT disruption, there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.

Delta Air Lines and its regional subsidiaries have canceled hundreds of flights

DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their East Coast schedules as of mid-afternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.

More than 1,100 flights by Delta and its subsidiaries have been canceled.

United and United Express canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedules, and American Airlines’ network canceled 450 flights, or 7.5% of its schedules.

Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to global internet outages and canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.

Portland, Oregon Mayor Declares State of Emergency Over Outage

PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.

Wheeler said at a news conference that while emergency calls were not interrupted, dispatchers had to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.

Border crossings to the United States are delayed

SAN DIEGO — People trying to enter the United States from both the north and the south found border crossings delayed by the internet outage.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry was backed up Friday morning, with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Even cars carrying passengers approved by U.S. Customers and Border Protection’s “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers faced waits of up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, allows passengers to move through customs and passport control more quickly if they schedule an interview and undergo a background check to get through customs and passport control more quickly upon arrival in the United States.

Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor police reported long delays at the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel crossings.





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