Microsoft cyber blackout brings the entire world to its knees this Friday (19)

The concentration of technology in the hands of a few companies brought the entire world to its knees this Friday, the 19th, with nothing to do but wait for the company responsible to find a solution so that banks, telecommunications companies and applications can start working again.

A large-scale cyber outage occurred after a security service provider’s system update went wrong. The failure was reportedly related to systems using Windows at CrowdStrike, a security service provider.

Several countries have reported technical errors that have affected the operations of international airlines, banking systems, railway companies and the telecommunications sector, among others. The incidents have put the world on alert since a third-party company, CrowdStrike, has the capacity to affect so many sectors around the world.

According to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), major airlines including Delta, United and American Airlines suspended flights early this morning due to “communication issues”. Airports in Berlin, Germany, Amsterdam-Schiphol in the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Spain and Switzerland were also affected.

In Brazil, at least six banks and the Central Bank (BC), the country’s monetary authority, are experiencing instability this Friday morning. The institutions that have presented “problems” or “potential problems” are:

• Bank of Brazil;
• Bread Bank;
• Bradesco;
• Itau;
• Neon;
• e Next

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on X (formerly Twitter) that the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” He said Apple and Linux operating systems were not affected. “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed,” he wrote.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he added.

Microsoft said on the same social network that it is “investigating an issue affecting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 applications and services.”

The company said it was working to redirect traffic “to alternative systems” and thus “alleviate the impact more quickly.” According to Microsoft, “several services continue to see improvements in availability as our mitigation efforts progress.”

Major U.S. airlines ordered groundings on Friday (19), citing communication failures. American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and Allegiant Air suspended flights less than an hour after Microsoft said it had resolved a cloud services outage that affected several low-cost carriers.

In Australia, media, banking and telecommunications companies suffered disruptions. Several countries in Asia were also affected, as well as in Europe.

In Germany, one of Europe’s largest healthcare facilities, the German University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), canceled all elective procedures on Friday, according to a statement on its website.