Flights have been canceled and TV stations have been taken online in a drastic computer outage.
Sudden Outage
Windows PCs on Friday inexplicably started showing a “blue screen of death” error that left them unusable.
That led to problems at many of the world’s biggest companies, including airlines, TV stations, and banks.
Issues have been found across the world, according to cyber security companies. The problem appears to relate to a broken cyber security update that left computers unable to start up.
Sky News was taken offline, airports were unable to check in flights, trains were disrupted and banks warned that customers might not be able to make payments. Tracking website Down Detector registered outages and problems at a huge array of companies: Delta Airlines, Visa, Mastercard, Lloyds Bank, Santander, Amazon, RyanAir, Sky News, Ladbrokes, BT, and Microsoft Teams all show issues. It is not clear whether all of them are linked to the problem with PCs.
Delta, United and American airlines were all grounded in the US, according to the Federal Aviation Authority. Around the world, flights and train operators were hit by problems.
Govia Thameslink Railway – the UK’s busiest train operator, which runs the Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern services around London – said that it was experiencing “widespread IT issues”. RyanAir said it was a “global third party IT outage” and advised travelers to arrive “at least three hours before” their flights.
Stock Market Dropped
Even the London Stock Exchange suffered disruptions, and stock markets dropped on the outage. The FTSE 100 fell 0.8 per cent, seemingly as investors worried about the potential financial implications if the outage continued for a long time.
“We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network,” it said. It meant that trains might be cancelled at short notice and that there would be issues getting real-time information to customers.
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Source: Independent
