Global Outages Disrupt Airlines, Banks, and Telecoms

Major airlines in the U.S. and various global companies experienced significant system outages. The outages disrupted operations for airlines, media outlets, banks, and telecom firms. While there were suspicions of connections to a Microsoft cloud services incident and a cybersecurity issue linked to Crowdstrike, no definitive cause was confirmed.

Major U.S. airlines grounded flights on Friday, citing communications issues, with reports of system outages from other global carriers, media companies, banks, and telecoms firms disrupting operations worldwide. American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Allegiant Air grounded flights shortly after Microsoft announced it had resolved a cloud services outage affecting several low-cost carriers.

Uncertainty remains as to whether the flight groundings were directly tied to Microsoft's outage. In Australia, media, banking, and telecoms sectors also experienced outages, reportedly linked to global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. The crowdsourced website Downdetector indicated outages across several banks and telecom companies, and Crowdstrike's technical support confirmed awareness of crashes related to Microsoft's Windows operating system.

The Australian National Cyber Security Coordinator, Michelle McGuinness, clarified there was no evidence suggesting a cybersecurity breach. The impact was extensive, with Spain facing a 'computer incident' across all airports and Ryanair alerting passengers to possible disruptions affecting all airlines. AWS cloud services are investigating connectivity issues with Windows EC2 instances and Workspaces, leaving unclear if all incidents are connected to Crowdstrike's problems or represent separate disruptions.

(With inputs from agencies.)