Worldwide IT outage grounds planes and disrupts airlines and banks globally

A major tech outage on Friday disrupted operations across various industries worldwide. Airlines such as American, Delta, and United grounded flights due to communication issues, while airports in Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Berlin reported delays. The disruption extended to financial services, with banks and stock exchanges experiencing significant interruptions. Microsoft’s cloud services and Amazon’s AWS were also impacted, further complicating matters.

The root cause of the outage was traced to a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Their Falcon Sensor software caused Microsoft Windows systems to crash, displaying the notorious ‘Blue Screen of Death.’ CrowdStrike has begun rolling back the problematic update, offering a manual workaround to mitigate the issue. Despite the widespread impact, there was no indication that the outage was due to a cyberattack.

The outage’s ripple effect was felt globally, hitting healthcare and media sectors. Sky News went off air in the UK, and doctors’ booking systems were down. In Australia, telecom companies and banks faced disruptions linked to CrowdStrike’s software issues. As companies work to restore their systems, the global scope of the outage underscores the interconnected nature of modern technology infrastructure.