Global services slowly recovering after bug causes IT chaos

July 20, 2024 LankaXpress Reporter

A worldwide Windows glitch has taken much of the world’s infrastructure offline.

Flights were grounded, and hospitals across the world have reported a variety of problems. TV channels have been taken off air. Everything from banks and payment companies to airlines and train companies said that they would see delays and technical issues.

Eerie scenes played out in New York as giant screens in the world-famous Times Square went dark, and across the US complications with local hospitals and law enforcement services were reported.

The problem is related to a global update sent out by CrowdStrike, a cyber security company that makes a product that aims to keep computers safe.

Businesses and services around the world are slowly recovering after a massive IT outage affected computer systems for hours yesterday.

Businesses, banks, hospitals, and airlines were among the worst-hit after cyber-security firm Crowdstrike issued a faulty software update which affected Microsoft Windows.

After CrowdStrike admitted that a bug in its update was to blame, Crowdstrike’s CEO apologised for the disruption and said a fix had been issued, but also admitted it could be “some time” before all systems were back up and running.

Several Sri Lankan companies including SriLankan Airlines were also affected by this.

The Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (SLCERT) says that a report has been requested from 40 government institutions to find out the extent that Sri Lanka has been affected by this sudden IT collapse.

While some airline services around the world are beginning to return to normal after thousands of flights were canceled, operators expect some delays and cancellations to persist through the weekend.

Many businesses are now dealing with backlogs and missed orders that could take days to resolve.

The global chaos has sparked concern over the vulnerability of the world’s interconnected technologies, and the extent to which a single software glitch could have such widespread impact.