Airlines, banks, TV channels and other business across the globe were scrambling yesterday to deal with one of the biggest IT crashes over the past few years, caused by an update to an antivirus software.
Aviation officials in the US briefly grounded all planes, while airlines elsewhere canceled or delayed flights, as systems running Microsoft Windows crashed.
Microsoft said the issue began at 7pm GMT on Thursday, affecting users of its Azure cloud platform running cybersecurity software CrowdStrike Falcon.
Photo: AFP
“We recommend customers that are able to, to restore from a backup from before this time,” the US software giant said in a technical update on its Web site.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz in a post on several social media platforms said that a fix had been rolled out for the problem, describing it as a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
Experts suggested applying the fix would not be straightforward.
The global nature of the failure prompted some commentators to question the reliance on a single provider for such a variety of services.
Shares in CrowdStrike slumped by 20 percent in premarket trading.
From Amsterdam to Zurich, Singapore to Hong Kong, airport operators flagged technical issues that were disrupting their services.
Some airports told planes they could not land, while in others airline staff began checking in passengers manually.
“I’m just in limbo as to how long I’ve got to wait here,” traveler Alexander Ropicano told reporters as he waited at Sydney Airport in Australia.
The 24-year-old, flying to Brisbane to see his girlfriend, said the airline told him to “wait until the system is operational again.”
The US Federal Aviation Administration in a notice to airlines early yesterday said that all flights “regardless of destination” were to be grounded.
However, American Airlines later said that as of 9am GMT “we have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”
“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” the airline said.
Major airports including Berlin, which had suspended flights earlier yesterday, said departures and arrivals were gradually resuming.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport said its airline systems got disrupted.
Airlines including AirAsia X, Tigerair Taiwan, Jetstar Airways, HK Express Airways, Jeju Air and Scoot were affected by the technical issue, the airport said.
Airline staff resorted to conducting passenger registration and seat allocation procedures manually, after Microsoft cloud-based booking-management system Navitaire was impacted by the outage, airport authorities said.
The Ministry of Digital Affairs issued a statement saying the ministry “inspected the status and operations of critical government information systems,” including the household registration and tax systems, as soon as the technical issue was discovered.
Critical government information systems were not affected and were operating normally, although some personal computers had malfunctioned, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS