(Paris) The situation, particularly in airports, returned to normal on Saturday after a major computer failure which caused chaos in transport, the media, and financial markets and put workers around the world on technical unemployment.
In France, Roissy and Orly airports, the two main entry points for foreign delegations for the Paris Olympic Games which begin on Friday, are under particular scrutiny.
“The situation has returned to normal in all airports in France,” published the Minister Delegate for Transport Patrice Vergriete on social networks on Saturday.
More generally, the situation is clearing up in the world skies. Many Asian airports reported “normal” or “near-normal” activity as of Friday evening local time, particularly in South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
However, some “residual issues” causing delays persist in Sydney and “five flights” operated by low-cost carrier Jetstar to Japan were disrupted on Saturday.
Berlin International Airport, the worst-hit in Germany, is operating almost normally again, although some travellers are still unable to use self-check-in machines, an airport spokesperson told AFP.
” Unprecedented ”
In the United States, emergency services in at least three states have been affected.
Some 3,400 flights were cancelled there on Friday, according to Flightaware.com, the worst day for air traffic in the country this year.
“According to our information, flights have resumed across the country, but some congestion persists,” a government official told the press.
Some 1,500 flights remained cancelled in the United States on Saturday afternoon.
PHOTO DAVE SANDERS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
A faulty point-of-sale system at a Key Foods grocery store in Brooklyn on July 19 in New York.
The cause: a faulty update on Microsoft’s Windows operating systems of an IT solution from the American cybersecurity group CrowdStrike, which rules out a cyberattack or an IT security problem.
“The scale of this outage is unprecedented and will undoubtedly go down in history,” said Junade Ali, a cybersecurity expert contacted by AFP.
“I want to personally apologize to every organization, every group and every individual that has been impacted,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told CNBC on Friday.
In a blog post Saturday, CrowdStrike said it released an update for Windows overnight Thursday into Friday that caused “a crash system crash and a blue screen.” This update was fixed after 78 minutes, says the company, which publishes remediation advice on its blog, which Microsoft recommends its customers to “follow.”
“We understand how this issue occurred and are conducting a thorough root cause analysis,” CrowdStrike also wrote. “We will update our findings.” […] as the investigation progresses.”
Some “8.5 million computers, or less than 1 percent of all Windows machines” were affected, Microsoft said Saturday.
The IT giant said it had deployed “hundreds of engineers and experts” to help affected organizations.
” Cardiac arrest ”
Another consequence of this breakdown is that hackers are trying to take advantage of the chaos by sending fraudulent messages to steal personal data, according to German, British and Australian services responsible for electronic security.
PHOTO MANDEL NGAN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A screen shows canceled and delayed flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on July 19, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia, during a major global computer outage.
“This is one of the rare times that we find security software at the origin of such a huge failure,” commented Kayssar Daher, another cybersecurity expert interviewed by AFP.
The scale of the phenomenon can be explained, according to him, by the fact that “Windows is extremely widespread, and CrowdStrike too.”
After temporarily disrupting IT operations for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, including the accreditation system but not ticketing, activities “resumed normally” on Friday afternoon, according to organizers.
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“The Paris 2024 IT system has not collapsed, so if there are a few malfunctions here and there, it’s a lesser evil,” a French sports movement executive told AFP.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the outage “caused cardiac arrest in the automotive supply chain.”
Television channels in France and Australia and several hospitals in the Netherlands were also affected, leading to the closure of an emergency department and the postponement of operations.
Global stock markets fell on Friday, worried by this breakdown which prevented the London and Milan indices from displaying their rate of change for a good part of the day.
In New York, CrowdStrike closed down 11.10% and Microsoft down 0.74%.
CrowdStrike relies heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning and notably offers a digital protection platform called Falcon.