On Friday, a global IT outage disrupted businesses across the world, affecting a wide range of services including airlines, financial institutions, and media companies.
The outage was linked to an update in CrowdStrike security software, which caused issues with Windows software. This incident impacted businesses in various countries, including Australia.
Airports in Europe and Australia issued warnings about potential delays due to the IT problems. Sydney Airport reported a “global technical outage” affecting its operations and advised passengers to expect delays, although flights continued to depart and arrive on schedule.
Berlin Brandenburg Airport also faced delays in passenger check-ins due to a “technical fault.”
Spain’s main airport operator, Aena, said its operations were being handled manually because of an “incident” with its IT system, which might lead to delays throughout its network. Aena is working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Ryanair experienced a “third-party IT issue” impacting all airlines in the network, beyond its control.
The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) was investigating a technical problem that was preventing the publication of news announcements. While other systems, including the exchange itself, were functioning normally, LSEG’s news service faced a “third-party global technical issue.”
Microsoft indicated early on Friday that some Azure cloud computing customers in the central US region might experience issues with various Azure services. The company traced the root cause to a technical problem, not a cyber attack, and stated that “the majority of services are now recovered.”
Despite this, broader outages continued, affecting access to Microsoft’s 365 suite of apps and services, including Teams. Microsoft assured that it was addressing the problem with “the highest priority and urgency,” though users would experience “gradual relief” as the issues were resolved, all stemming from the Azure problem.
