Picture this: you've been eagerly anticipating your summer holiday for months. You've bought new summer clothes and toiletries, meticulously packed everything within the weight limit, and ensured your boarding pass is ready. You've checked your passport at least twenty times on the way to the airport. Finally, you are fully prepared and ready to embark on your holiday!
Regrettably, the airport is not. Due to a significant global IT outage affecting travel and banking systems worldwide, airports across the globe are experiencing severe delays for holidaymakers. This outage forced airports to revert to manual check-ins, reminiscent of the old days. Unsurprisingly, this is causing substantial wait times for travellers.
July is the peak holiday season, and this weekend was the busiest of the entire year. If there were ever a time for an IT outage to be particularly ill-timed, it would be now.
Nevertheless, this incident impacted more than just airports. The disruption extended to the following:
All and more of these sectors encountered significant challenges due to the Information Technology outage. The ripple effect of this incident was felt across various facets of daily life, highlighting the pervasive dependence on reliable IT systems.
What caused this IT outage, you ask? Ironically, it was triggered by a cybersecurity update from Crowdstrike. The CEO of Crowdstrike has apologised for the incident, stating the following about this significant event:
"Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted.
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 organisations ensure they're communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers."
BBC Cyber Correspondent Joe Tidy has this to say about the incident:
"For my money, we've not seen as bad an IT issue since the WannaCry cyber-attack in May 2017.
That was a malicious cyber-attack that affected an old version of Windows and spread automatically and uncontrollably to any computer that had that old and unprotected Windows software.
It affected an estimated 300,000 computers in 150 different countries. Famously the NHS was badly hit with huge disruption for days.
In that case, it was an attack that got out of hand. Today's outage was caused by a defect found in a Crowdstrike cyber-security software update."
This incident underscores the critical importance of having robust IT service providers. At Silver Lining, we understand this profoundly. Our mission is to boost efficiency, reduce operating costs, and provide easy upgrades as your business grows seamlessly. We offer a comprehensive range of services, from telephone systems to outsourced IT support and infrastructure solutions.
Visit our website to discover more about our diverse offerings and understand why our customers take pride in partnering with us for their IT needs.
