A massive Microsoft outage has sparked chaos around the world – grounding flights and knocking hospitals, GP surgeries, train services, banks, stock exchanges and TV channels offline.
WHY MICROSOFT OUTAGE?
The technical fault has caused Windows computers to suddenly shut down, prompting departure boards to suddenly turn off at airports including Gatwick and Edinburgh on one of the busiest days for global aviation since Covid.
AS IT IS
Train passengers have been told to expect delays due to ‘widespread IT issues across the entire network’, while a number of GP surgeries have shut down due to problems with the NHS appointment booking system.
Huge queues have been seen at airports including Gatwick, Luton and Edinburgh; Ryanair and Wizz Air are warning of ‘disruption’; and TV channels including Sky News and CBBC spent time off air.
Microsoft has confirmed it was investigating an ‘issue’ with its 365 apps and operating systems and said users should expect ‘service degradation’.
US cyber security company CrowdStrike has admitted to being responsible for the error and said they are ‘working on it’.
Experts believe the issue could have been caused by a ‘buggy’ security update but say it is too early to ‘rule out’ a cyberattack.
Windows is the most used operating system in the world, meaning the outage is affecting almost every part of the global economy – with restaurants and cafes, including the bakery chain Gail’s, unable to take card payments.
ABOUT CROWDSTRIKE
Crowdstrike is a security service designed to stop internet breaches for the world’s biggest companies, but a rogue update is believed to brought the world to its knees.
The software update is believed to have been sent out to subscriber computers several hours ago – instantly causing chaos.
Computer analysts believe a badly-written bit of code in the update triggered the catastrophe and wrecked computer networks worldwide.
