Computer system outages that began in the UK on Friday continue to impact flight schedules worldwide. While UK airports are again functioning normally, airlines are warning of continuing disruption through the weekend. Other organisations affected by the faulty software update issued by cyber security firm Crowdstrike include GPs, pharmacies, banks, payment systems and train operators. Retailers, including Waitrose and Morrisons, were unable to take card payments, and Sky News was briefly off air. Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz apologised for the outages and promised transparency on their cause.
338 flights between the UK and the rest of the world had been cancelled by Friday evening, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. British travel writer Simon Calder described passengers as “absolutely despondent”. National Rail said services were no longer affected by the outages, but some operators are still advising passengers to check their journeys before setting out. The problems came on one of the busiest days of the year, with many schools in England and Wales closing for the summer holidays.
Airlines have issued updates indicating that some flights may be subject to delays or cancellations over the weekend. Gatwick said that some disruption would continue over the weekend, while Manchester confirmed that its terminal was back up and running. Belfast International continued to operate as normal. Delayed and cancelled flights could have knock-on effects, such as crew and planes being out of position.
Crowdstrike’s faulty software update was issued for Microsoft Windows. Could the firm face litigation or reputational damage as a result of the problems? The use of its product is now likely to come under renewed scrutiny, with affected organisations seeking explanations of how the issues arose.
On Friday, former UK National Cyber Security Centre chief Ciaran Martin said that the incident was not a cyber attack but a “systemic failure”. Martin warned last year that a major cyber attack on the UK was a matter of “when, not if”
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More