BIG ISSUE: Microsoft announced that a significant outage that started late on July 18 and affected some stores, banks, and residential users
A significant worldwide IT outage has affected banks, retailers, trains, airlines, TV shows, and television stations. Overnight disruptions were experienced by broadcasters like Sky News and airlines like Allegiant, Frontier, and SunCountry.
A serious Microsoft bug that started late on Thursday, July 18, resulted in TV shows being pulled from the air and flights being grounded. Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern, the four brands of Govia Thameslink Railway, declared on social media that “we are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network.” Our IT departments are working hard to identify the source of the issue.
There may be short-notice cancellations due to our inability to access driver diagrams in some places, especially on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks. Our real-time customer information platforms are among the other important systems that are impacted. When we can, we’ll provide you more updates. Please double-check your route before you depart in the interim.
Issues are not unique to GTR, the biggest operator in Britain in terms of passengers, trains, and employees. According to Neil Shaw, issues have also been reported in the US, India, Australia, and New Zealand.
Issues have also been encountered by customers attempting to access bank accounts, Facebook, Netflix, and Australian retailers Woolworths and 7-Eleven. According to Microsoft, the outage affected its Azure and 365 cloud services, which are utilised by numerous businesses, and started at around 11 p.m. UK time. Since then, the problem has been fixed, and services are progressively returning online.
The Federal Aviation Administration asked airlines to halt flights until the technology could be restored as a result of the flight issue, which mostly affected Americans. Presenter Jacquie Beltrao of Sky News in the UK tweeted about their broadcast problems, stating, “We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying.”
A number of networks, including SBS, ABC, and Network 10, experienced a string of glitches due to what seemed to be a corrupt Microsoft Windows antivirus update, including Sky News. The Sky News Australia team encountered the same problems as well.
According to reports, the issue was caused by an incorrect update to the widely used antivirus programme CrowdStrike. This resulted in crashes affecting airlines, banks, and IT companies.
When viewers attempted to watch Sky News at six in the morning, they were initially greeted with an interruption notice. In the interim, as they worked through the problems, the broadcaster turned to showing an old Windrush documentary.
Microsoft announced on social media that it is looking into “an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services” in response to the situation. Additionally, users took to the internet to voice their grievances and frustrations regarding their computers.
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