Passengers wait in the south terminal of Gatwick Airport as some flights are cancelled or delayed, in Horley, south of London on July 19, 2024.
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, causing global disruptions Friday that grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, retailers and other services.
The British government said Friday that it had activated its civil contingencies committee to handle the response to a global IT outage that hit U.K. transport and health services. Airports including London Luton, Belfast and Edinburgh warned of longer waiting times for passengers because of the glitch, which was apparently caused by an update to an antivirus programme.
Photo by AFP
Travelers at Los Angeles International Airport sleep in a jetway for a delayed United Airlines flight to Dulles International Airport due to a widespread global outage early Friday, July 19, 2024, in Los Angeles.
Photo by AP
Long lines of suitcases at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, United States as passengers wait due to the global communications outage caused by CrowdStrike, which provides cyber security services to U.S. technology company Microsoft, on July 19, 2024.
Photo by Reuters
A general view from Madrid-Barajas International Airport in Madrid, Spain as passengers gather and wait due to the global communications outage caused by CrowdStrike, which provides cyber security services to U.S. technology company Microsoft, on July 19, 2024 .
Photo by Reuters
Travelers walk by the departure board at Charles de Gaulle airport, Friday, July 19, 2024 in Roissy, north of Paris. With athletes and spectators arriving from around the world for the Paris Olympics, the city's airport authority said its computer systems were not affected by the outage, but that disruptions to airline operations was causing delays at two major Paris airports.
Photo by AP
A passenger captures a United Airlines' board that shows faulty screens at a U.S. airport.
In a Saturday blog post, CrowdStrike said it had rolled out a fix for the problem that had caused a system crash and the infamous "blue screen of death" fatal error message.
The company's boss, George Kurtz, told U.S. news channel CNBC he wanted to "personally apologize to every organization, every group and every person who has been impacted."
At least 4,295 flights were cancelled globally due to the incident.
Photo by Reuters
