Microsoft’s ‘blue screen of death’ shown when software shuts down.
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A worldwide technology issue, causing Windows computers and systems to shut down has sparked widespread chaos this morning, sending television channels, airports, and banks offline.
The incident appears to be linked to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, which has acknowledged it was investigating the issues.
Widespread outage
Sky News breakfast show was among the broadcasters affected by the blackout, not able to air their usual show this morning and instead archive footage.
The incident also impacted NBC Bay Area and other media companies from broadcasting live newscasts.
Airport cancellations
Ryanair warned passengers of “third party IT issues” on their website, which are “affecting all airlines operating across the network”, urging passengers to arrive at airports three hours early.
In Alicante Airport, passengers are being escorted straight from arriving to out of the airport. They are not stamping passports and are unable to collect their luggage as everything is offline. Flights have also been cancelled with hundreds waiting outside. Passengers are also unable to check in online.
San Francisco International Airport also confirmed it was experiencing an airport-wide tech issue.
The tech issues can be seen going as far as Australia and New Zealand, with Sydney Airport releasing a statement stating, “We have activated our contingency plans and deployed additional staff to our terminals.”
Supermarket shutdowns
As well as the airport, many supermarket shoppers in Australia haven’t been able to pay for their groceries due to checkouts and payment systems also crashing.
John Adams, an Australian political and economic commentator strongly stated on his social media “The cashless society is a dystopian nightmare which must be stopped!”
Railway alerts
Govia Thameslink Railway, the parent company to Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern, issued an alert across their social media warning passengers to expect delays and disruption due to “widespread IT issues.”
Many users of Windows have reported encountering the so-called “blue screen of death”, a critical error screen displayed by the Microsoft Windows operating system, on their computers when the outage occurred.
Expert calls it largest in history
Australian IT expert, Troy Hunt, who runs the website HaveIBeenPwned, says the global crash may be “the largest IT outage in history” in a post on X, adding that “the financial impact of this is already hard to fathom.”
Antivirus software to blame
Downdetector, a website which monitors outages, reported sudden spikes in issues with websites including Microsoft applications, airline apps and banking websites.
Cyber security engineers pointed to a problem with Crowdstrike, the antivirus software used in Windows, which appeared to be causing computers to crash.
Founder of the cyber research company Imperum described the incident as “Crowdstrike Doom’s Day”.
Crowdstrike has acknowledged this issue in a post on its website, stating “Crowdstrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows related to the Falcon Sensor”
Microsoft’s cyber security technology is now in the firing line after this worldwide technological shutdown.
