Widespread disruptions to airline operations, banking services, and various other industries have been reported in several countries, including Singapore, the United States, and Australia.
A widespread IT outage, which started early Friday, has resulted in disruptions to numerous airlines, banks, and media organizations globally.
IT system failures have caused widespread disruptions in the travel and finance industries, with multiple airports and airlines experiencing grounding of flights and service interruptions. Specifically, Sydney Airport has suspended flight operations, United Airlines has halted all flights, and the London Stock Exchange Group’s platform has suffered technical difficulties.
In Germany, Berlin airport experienced IT problems, causing delays in check-ins due to technical faults.
Sky News has also gone off-air because of the outage. Sky News executive chairman David Rhodes confirmed the channel’s inability to broadcast live and apologized to viewers via social media. He assured that online news reports remain available and that efforts are underway to restore full services.
The disruption is linked to issues with Microsoft internet services and CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity software firm.
Rail transportation has not been spared, as the UK’s Govia Thameslink Railway reported widespread IT issues across its network, leading to potential cancellations and delays. The company is actively investigating the root cause and has urged passengers to check their journeys before traveling.
Australia’s Telstra Group also reported service disruptions due to the global issues affecting CrowdStrike and Microsoft.
Microsoft has identified the cause of the outage as a configuration change in a segment of its Azure backend infrastructure, which led to connectivity issues impacting various Microsoft 365 services. The affected services include PowerBI, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive for Business, and several others. Microsoft is actively working to resolve the issue and has already successfully restored some services.
The far-reaching consequences of this global IT outage underscore the intricate interconnectedness of modern digital systems, demonstrating how technical issues can have a ripple effect across multiple sectors.
