Microsoft's global problem: IT disruption paralyzes air traffic, gas stations, banks in many countries

Microsoft's global problem
IT disruption paralyzes air traffic, gas stations and banks in many countries

July 19, 2024, 9:13 AM

Public life is largely at a standstill in many countries. Australia, Great Britain, the USA and India, among others, have reported serious technical problems. The offer is also unavailable or only available to a limited extent at German and Lufthansa airports.

A technical issue at Microsoft appears to be leading to severe restrictions on public life in several countries. There are currently reports from Australia, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, the United States and India. Banks, airports, petrol stations, as well as major supermarket chains, rail traffic and television stations are affected by the disruption. They are currently unable to provide their services or can only provide them to a limited extent.

The Australian government was forced to call an emergency meeting in the morning: “The Australian government is working closely with the National Cyber ​​Security Coordinator on these evolving outages,” a government spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Disturbance in BER and Hamburg

In Germany, air traffic at Berlin Airport was forced to halt due to a technical failure. An airport spokeswoman told ntv.de that no flights were expected to take off or land until 10 a.m. According to RBB reports, there was reportedly a server failure at Berlin Airport. It is unclear whether this is related to the problems at Microsoft.

Shortly before 10 a.m., Hamburg Airport also reported a disruption. A spokeswoman for the airport said that four airlines were affected in Hamburg. These are Eurowings, Ryanair, Vueling, Turkish Airlines. The airlines will initially issue tickets manually. Lufthansa has also reported problems with its systems. It is said that there may be individual delays and cancellations. However, a spokesman for Frankfurt Airport said that all systems are working and flight operations can be carried out without interruption.

Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital has cancelled all operations scheduled for Friday at its sites in Kiel and Lübeck.

We are aware of the issue.

Businesses around the world are working with software offerings from the US technology conglomerate. It announced that a technical issue caused Microsoft 365 to fail around the world. “We are investigating an issue affecting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 applications and services,” He writes Microsoft on Platform X. According to this, the company notes a “positive trend in service availability.”

On several platforms, users have also reported issues with an update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “We are aware of a widespread issue that is causing errors on Windows PCs across different sensor versions,” a Crowdstrike official said online. As reported by business portal Bloomberg, among other things, a bug in Crowdstrike is said to have caused the Microsoft bug.

“We apologize for the interruption.”

The biggest restrictions are currently being reported in Great Britain and Australia. Among others, the British news channel Sky News has had to stop its programming. A still image simply reads to viewers: “We apologise for the interruption. We hope to resume broadcasting soon.”

In Australia, all of ABC News’s monitors are said to be down. Similar issues have been reported at Sydney and Melbourne airports. As a result, check-in is currently not possible for many airlines. Several Australian banks have also reported that their payment systems have been affected by the disruption and that no transfers can currently be made.

In the US, American Airlines, United and Delta are said to have asked the Federal Aviation Administration to “cease all flights worldwide”. In Japan, around 30% of all McDonald’s branches were forced to close early due to technical problems. Irish budget airline Ryanair said there were IT issues beyond its control.

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