Following a huge outage that caused havoc on global computer systems on Friday, Microsoft announced that it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service difficulties.
It was unclear whether these were linked to the global disruptions.
“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft wrote in a post on social networking site X.
The disruption had already cancelled aircraft in the United States, disrupted television broadcasts in the United Kingdom, and affected telecommunications in Australia.
The Federal Aviation Administration reported that major US airlines, including Delta, United, and American Airlines, grounded all flights on Friday due to a communication issue.
Flights at Germany‘s Berlin Brandenburg airport were halted due to a “technical issue,” according to a spokeswoman.
“There are delays to check-in, and flight operations have been canceled until 10:00 am (0800 GMT),” the spokeswoman said, adding that she could not specify when they would resume.
All airports in Spain are experiencing “disruptions” due to an IT outage affecting several companies worldwide on Friday, according to the airport operator Aena.
Hong Kong’s airport also reported that some airlines were affected, linking the disruption to a Microsoft outage in an official statement.
Meanwhile, the UK’s largest rail operator warned of potential train cancellations due to IT issues. Photos posted online showed large queues forming at Sydney Airport in Australia.
“Flights are currently arriving and departing, though there may be some delays throughout the evening,” said a Sydney Airport spokesman. “We have activated our contingency plans with our airline partners and deployed additional staff to assist passengers at our terminals.”
Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator stated that the “large-scale technical outage” was caused by an issue with a “third-party software platform,” noting there was no evidence yet of hacker involvement.
Banks, airports, and other institutions were significantly impacted:
- Sky News in the United Kingdom said that the issue hampered morning news broadcasts, while Australian broadcaster ABC experienced a serious “outage.”
- Some self-checkout systems at one of Australia’s leading grocery chains were not working, flashing blue error messages.
- The New Zealand media stated that banks and computer systems in the country’s parliament were having problems.
- Telstra, an Australian telecommunications company, said that the disruptions were caused by “global issues” with Microsoft software and CrowdStrike cybersecurity.
Toby Murray, an expert from the University of Melbourne, indicated that the problem might be linked to a security tool called CrowdStrike Falcon. “CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity and threat intelligence company,” Murray explained. “Falcon is an endpoint detection and response platform that monitors the computers it is installed on to detect and respond to intrusions (i.e., hacks).”
Jill Slay, a cybersecurity researcher at the University of South Australia, noted that the global impact of these outages was likely to be “enormous.”