A global IT outage has caused chaos at airports, banks, railways andbusinesses around the world as a wide range of services were taken offline and millions of people were affected.
In one of the most widespread IT crashes ever to hit companies and institutions globally, air transport ground to a halt, hospitals were affected and large numbers of workers were unable to access their computers. In the UK Sky News was taken off air temporarily and the NHS GP booking system was down.
Microsoft’s Windows service was at the centre of the outage, with experts linking the problem to a software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike that has affected computer systems around the world. Experts said the outage could take days from which to recover because every PC may have to be fixed manually.
Overnight, Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an issue with its services and apps, with the organisation’s service health website warning of “service degradation” that meant users may not be able to access many of the company’s most popular services, used by millions of business and people around the world.
Among the affected firms are Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, which said on its website: “Potential disruptions across the network (Fri 19 July) due to a global third party system outage … We advise passengers to arrive at the airport three hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions.”
They are suffering from fallout because of media outlets like the one linked in this post that point the finger at Microsoft and Windows, but I feel this isn’t really fair.
If the kernel module Crowdstrike uses for Linux systems had failed everybody would rightfully point the finger at them for screwing up. But it probably wouldn’t be news since their Linux solutions aren’t as widespread as their Windows solutions are.
If a Windows update would have caused this kind of thing, pointing the finger at Microsoft is justified. But Microsoft has many policies in place that prevent this kind of thing from happening. Their ring based rollout for Windows Updates pretty much exclude this kind of thing from happening.
Who who conscientiously uses Linux would allow a kernel level module solution such as this into their systems?
I think Crowdstrike has many many customers who use their Linux solutions, so you would have to ask them.
They provide corporate products, I don’t think corporations have anything even close to a conscience.