Microsoft outage: Which industries were affected in global IT chaos?

Microsoft systems across the globe crashed on Friday resulting in a tech outage caused by a flaw in an update by cyber security firm CrowdStrike for its “Falcon Sensor” software.

Several devices started displaying a blue screen, which is informally known as “Blue Screen of Death”, rendering the computers useless.

The global tech outage brought the world to a standstill affecting the operations of airports, airlines, banks, media outlets and health care among other industries.

Here are a few industries which have been disrupted due to the digital disruption.

Airports and airlines

With systems crashing around the world, airports and airline industries took a serious hit with flight delays, cancellations, manual check-ins, and even halting of flights.

In India, airlines such as SpiceJet, IndiGo, Akasa Air, Vistara, Air India and Air India Express were experiencing problems on Friday. Reuters reported that, online booking services of Spicejet and Indigo took hit during the tech glitch.

The impacts of this cyber incident were felt in the high-density airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai with passengers arguing with airline staff over the delay or the cancellation of flights.

Around 23 flights were cancelled from the Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. IndiGo’s flights to Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru were cancelled, reported PTI.

Airports in Berlin, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Brussels, Budapest, among others were also affected during the global tech outage.

Major US carriers including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines halted flights on Friday morning which were later re-established.

Australia’s national airline, Qantas flights were delayed and around 90 per cent of flights at London Gatwick Airport and London Stansted Airport had been delayed or cancelled, reported Reuters. Irish carrier, Ryanair too was forced to cancel a small number of flights during as a result of the outage.

Financials

Finance companies such as JP Morgan Chase & Co, Macquarie Capital, Barclays, and Brazilian lender Bradesco were all affected in the outage.

Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank was facing issues in the instant fund transfer front. Services of Capitec Bank and Absa, South African finance giants were restored after experiencing disruptions.

In Germany, employees of insurer Allianz were unable to log on to their systems and several banks in the country were experiencing disruptions, an official told Reuters.

London Stock Exchange Group’s’s Workspace news and data platform also suffered during the outage.

Some brokerages in India were facing technical difficulties, traders at the brokerages told Reuters.

Media

Broadcasting came to a halt for Britain’s Sky News for hours, operating at minimum capacity without many of its usual services. ABC, Australia’s state broadcaster, said it was experiencing a “major network outage”. Regular programming at Sky News Australia was also disrupted, reported Reuters.

Healthcare and emergency services

Healthcare services in England, Netherlands, Germany among others took a hit in the global digital disruption. However it was reported that, emergency services in England were not affected.

In Denmark, Copenhagen’s fire department experiences problems accessing automatically transmitted fire alarm and urged people to call the emergency number in case of fire. Internal systems of Victoria state police in Australia were affected but emergency services were running normally.

US-based Non-profit hospital chain Mass General Brigham had to cancel previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits for the day. Patient services and customer contact teams of Quest Diagnostics were working in a limited capacity. Delivery of physician and patient portals by Labcorp, laboratory service provider in the US was impacted in the tech outage.

Others

Dispatch operation of India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki was halted and later resumed without any material impact from the incident.

The functioning of the the Paris Olympics organising committee was slowed down, said the committee. However, the cyber outage did not affect the ticket sales.

English football club, Manchester United had to postpone its scheduled release of tickets due to the disruptions.

New Zealand’s parliamentary computer systems were affected, according to Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, head of the parliamentary service, reported Reuters.

The mobile order-ahead and pay features of Starbucks were temporarily down due to tech outage.