Thursday, August 7, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » Special Report » World’s Biggest IT Outage Continues to Wreak Havoc

World’s Biggest IT Outage Continues to Wreak Havoc

July 20, 2024
in Special Report
0
541
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The world is still reeling from what is being dubbed history’s biggest IT meltdown, with borders backed up for hours and hospitals being forced to cancel operations, following a glitch pushed out to a piece of software, ironically built to help protect computers from cyberattacks.

Airports, hospitals, banks and stock markets across were world were sent spiralling into chaos after security software produced by American firm CrowdStrike caused computers running Microsoft Windows to reboot over and over again, rendering them unusable.

In the States, the northern and southern borders are still locked up due to what has been dubbed the world’s biggest IT meltdown, causing snaking queues of cars to back up.

Germany, meanwhile, has been forced to cancel operations in hospitals, endangering lives.

ReadAlso

No Content Available

And in India and China, authorities are finally managing to wrestle back control of airports, allowing passengers to make much-needed journeys across the globe.

So-called ‘Blue Screens of Death’ began popping up across the world on Friday morning, after CrowdStrike pushed out an update to its Falcon Sensor software, which allows its clients to detect and prevent cyberattack threats.

ADVERTISEMENT

By mid-morning, the outage was estimated to have caused $24billon in damages to the world’s economy.

Part of this came in the form of delayed travel. In the US, people seeking to enter from both the north and south have been forced to queue for hours as crossing were delayed massively by the internet outage.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked on Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Even cars with people approved for a US Customers and Border Protection ‘Trusted Traveler’ program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes.

The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the US.

Meanwhile, at the US-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.

Officials at international travel hubs desperately wrangled the outage, trying their hardest to bring some stability amid the IT chaos.

Officials at Hong Kong International Airport said that normal operations have been resumed, according to Chinese state media.

Citing the city-state’s airport authority, media said that passenger check-in systems have returned to normal.

In India, two major airlines, SpiceJet and Air India, said that they managed to resolve all issues caused by CrowdStrike’s glitch.

SpiceJet managing director Ajay Singh said: ‘Our team worked tirelessly to ensure minimal disruption to our passengers’ travel plans, and we are proud to have successfully operated all our scheduled flights.

An Air India spokesperson, meanwhile, said: ‘We confirm that none of Air India flights on 19 July was cancelled on account of the worldwide outage of travel systems, though there were some delays due to the impact of the outage on airport services.

‘Air India’s own, resilient IT infrastructure remained unaffected yesterday and continues to function as normal.’

Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to ‘largely scheduled’ flight operations on Saturday.

On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.

‘Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,’ the airline said Saturday on X. ‘However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions’ for passengers, it said.

While international travel seems to be sorting itself out, emergency services still appear to be affected by the outage.

In Portland, Oregon, mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency on Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.

Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.

And two German hospitals in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel have cancelled elective operations scheduled for Friday, their operator said.

Patient care and emergency services are being maintained, the University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH) added in a statement.

The UK’s National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, ‘because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.’

He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.

‘If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place- So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.’

But other nations have warned that the issue may not be resolved any time soon. Australia’s cyber-intelligence agency said on Saturday that ‘malicious websites and unofficial code’ were being released online, which could cause further havoc if implemented.

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) said ‘a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident’.

On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre ‘strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only’.

Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil said on social media platform X on Saturday that Australians should ‘be on the lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts’.

Source: MailOnline

Tags: CrowdStrikeOutageWorld's Economy
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

UNIZIK Gets First Female Vice-Chancellor

Next Post

DANGOTE: If we knew the magnitude of what we were going into, we would have…

You MayAlso Like

Special Report

Africa, Global Epicenter of Terror

August 5, 2025
Farmers milk a camel at Beder Camel Farm on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu, Somalia, Wednesday, June 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh) (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
Special Report

The camel milk revolution is improving nutrition and creating jobs for this African nation

August 5, 2025
Protesters hold up signs with images of Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed in Nigeria along with eight other activists in 1995 [File: Martin Pope/Getty Images]
Featured

Nigeria Kills Her Sun: Death And Vindication For Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni Nine

August 3, 2025
Special Report

Global hunger declines, but rises in Africa — UN report

July 29, 2025
Special Report

Growing number of African Americans are leaving the US

July 28, 2025
Special Report

Hundreds of Nigerian ‘authors’ use visa scheme to enter Britain

July 28, 2025
Next Post

DANGOTE: If we knew the magnitude of what we were going into, we would have...

Notorious Terrorist Named Former Governor 'Supporting' Terrorism in Nigeria

Discussion about this post

Saudi Arabia Executes Seven Africans In One Day Over Drug-Related Offenses

Dr. Ben Nwoye’s Hiatus and Return: Fear Grips the Ousted APC Leadership in Enugu

Hamas orders starving hostage to dig his own grave

Key Ongoing Road Projects In Each Of The Six Geo-Political Zones

‘Go to Hell’ – Trump tells Senate Minority Leader

My One-Term, Four-Year Vow Is Sacrosanct | Peter Obi

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1239 shares
    Share 496 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1065 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 266
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    970 shares
    Share 388 Tweet 243
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    902 shares
    Share 360 Tweet 225
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Pzafaama Foundation distributed educational and welfare kits to 500 Less-Privileged Pupils

August 6, 2025

Inside Manchester United’s summer tour: Meticulous preparation, crucial bonding, new players catching up

August 5, 2025

OceanGate CEO ‘completely ignored’ flawed Titan sub before deadly Titanic trip, Coast Guard report finds

August 5, 2025

Africa, Global Epicenter of Terror

August 5, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.