A major technology outage affected global operations on Friday, with airports, public transit systems, banks, hospitals, and schools worldwide facing disruptions. The incident was attributed to a faulty system update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, impacting Microsoft’s Windows Operating System. CrowdStrike identified and deployed a fix for the issue, emphasizing that it was not a security incident or cyberattack, and Microsoft stated that the underlying cause had been resolved but some residual impacts on Microsoft 365 apps and services remained.
In the U.S., hundreds of flights were canceled, major public transit systems reported impacts, and schools and universities experienced computer crashes due to the outage. The Federal Aviation Administration implemented ground stops, and airports in Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India were also affected. The outage led to delays, cancellations, and problems with ticketing and other systems in major cities like Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the situation, and the Department of Homeland Security stated that federal agencies were assessing the impacts of the outage. Despite the disruptions, experts believe the outage is more of a nuisance than an economic event, as activities can be recovered if the issue is resolved promptly. Airlines offered travel waivers, while public transit systems worked to restore services. Overall, the outage highlighted the vulnerabilities of global systems to technical failures and the importance of cybersecurity and IT resilience in the modern world.
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