The Cause Of The Outage Is Unclear, But Many Of Those Impacted Have Linked It To Microsoft PC Operating Systems.
Major global institutions have reported suffering a mass IT outage that has crippled operations and impacted customers.
The institutions include international airlines, major banks, media outlets, and hospitals. It was unclear as of the time of this report if any Nigerian businesses and organisations were affected.
Some states in the US on Friday said emergency services were affected, while several of the country’s airlines grounded their flights worldwide.
Reports said Australia, which has been particularly hard hit, recorded broadcast networks scrambling on air as systems failed and supermarkets crippled.
Although it is now back on air – with a slate apologising for an “interruption to this broadcast” – Sky News went completely off-air due to the issues.
The cause of the outage is unclear, but many of those impacted have linked it to Microsoft PC operating systems.
“We are investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” an official Microsoft 365 service update posted on X earlier in the day said. But a Microsoft spokesperson told the BBC on Friday that “the majority of services were recovered” hours earlier.
Social media users earlier reported queues at Australian stores like Woolworths, with payment systems downed. Other customers also had trouble accessing financial institutions like the National Australia Bank.
“We have been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD) and get suck in a restarting state,” Microsoft said Friday.
It noted that CrowdStrike has removed the problematic update, but customers still facing issues should contact CrowdStrike for further help.
The company said efforts to find solutions for customers are ongoing, and more information will be provided as it becomes available.
CrowdStrike Chief Executive Officer (CEO) George Kurtz confirmed the cybersecurity firm’s role in the outage and assured that it is dealing with a defect in a content update affecting only Windows hosts, not Mac or Linux.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.
“We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” he said.
It was unclear as of the time of this report if any Nigerian businesses were affected.
PREMIUM TIMES
