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PARTS OF THE world were thrown into chaos today as a global IT outage has resulted in cancelled flights and interferences with businesses, healthcare and banking.
Websites including ABC News Australia and Ryanair are down as Microsoft confirmed that it is investigating the error.
All Spanish airports, three Indian airlines, and Amsterdam Airport have reported being significantly affected by the outage.
Governments have jumped into action to try to reduce the impact, but how did it happen and how will Ireland be affected?
A cyber-security firm Crowdstrike has said that the problem was caused by an update to its Falcon antivirus software, designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks.
It’s been stressed that the outage is not from hackers and there is no risk of a data breach. It’s simply a technical error with far-reaching implications. All essential services are up and running, however, because it’s mostly “peripheral” systems that have been hit.
Ireland is lucky to not see the worst of it, as Crowdstrike isn’t widely-used here, says Joseph Stephens, Director of Resilience at the National Cyber Security Centre.
What it underlines is really how completely dependent we are on digital infrastructure, not just here in Ireland, but across the globe.
“We have been fortuitous in that CrowdStrike hasn’t been deployed here,” Stephens told RTÉ’s News at One.
“It’s not a situation, really, that people could have prepared for if, ironically, people who have deployed CrowdStrike, which is quite an advanced piece of software, are the ones who are being most affected by this.”
He said, however, that Ireland has protocols to deal with outages like this, and government information officers met this morning shortly after the issue was alerted.
The RSA has said some of its NCT test centres are not in operation due to the “significant disruption”.
However, Athlone, Cork Little Island, Deansgrange, Fonthill, Greenhills and Limerick centres are fully operational.
Appointments can’t be booked online, but can still be made over the phone by calling 01-4135992.
The RSA said applications for learner permits and driving licences “cannot currently be processed at NDLS centres”, and it is currently not possible to contact customers to cancel today’s appointments.
It said driving tests are currently taking place, adding that tests can be booked and customers are advised to arrive for their test as scheduled.
The Leap Card top up app and TFI Live are also not working, but card holders can still top up in shops.
Flights
Dublin Airport was largely unaffected today. It used manual workarounds instead, which exist for this exact scenario.
The DAA has said that there are currently no widespread issues there or at Cork Airport, with Ryanair’s check-in processes currently the most impacted.
Ryanair has advised passengers to arrive three hours before their scheduled departure time.
Whiteboards being used at @belfastairport as all the screens are blue. Passenger Martin McElroy took this, and told us that it's like “the dark ages, but to be fair they’re making it work, which you have to give them credit for.” #outage pic.twitter.com/FfSmEHCvuO
— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) July 19, 2024
Aer Lingus said its flights are mainly operating as normal, but there may be some processing delays at airports.
It also advised customers to allow extra time before their flight and to check the airline’s website or app for updates.
The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has told passengers that if their flight is cancelled due to the outage, they are entitled to choose a refund or re-routing to your destination.
Connor Flynn is Managing Director of Waystone Compliance Solutions, which has been helping some of the companies affected.
He said it’s been quite “traumatic” for IT administrators, who initially worried it was a cyber attack.
He found that companies had done “very little” to prepare for this type of outage.
“It’s almost a chicken and egg situation,” he said.
Security professionals advise clients to keep their cybersecurity software updated to protect them, but today it did the opposite.
“Because of the speed with which these cyber threats are propagating now across the globe, you need that rapid updating to defend against them,” he said.
“We expect much better of our service providers in this space, such as CrowdStrike and others, to have done their due diligence, their effective testing against the patch before it’s deployed.”
Speaking to NBC’s Today Show in the US, CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz said the company would “make sure that every customer is fully recovered”.
Many firms were rebooting their computers and coming back online, he said, but it could still be “some time” before all systems had completely recovered.
“We’ve been on with our customers all night [US-time] and working with them – many of our customers are rebooting the system and it’s coming up and operational because we fixed it on our end,.”
Asked if he ever thought an outage of this scale was possible, the CrowdStrike founder said: “Software is a very complex world and there’s a lot of interactions, and always staying ahead of the adversary is a tall task.”
Flynn said it will be difficult to fix quickly as every device has to be individually fixed to remove the corrupt file.
Servers, which are computers in date centres largely running without manual assistance, could take even longer to fix.
Flynn stressed that, while inconvenient, the outage has only had an “availability impact”, but nobody’s personal or financial data has been compromised.
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What difference does it make if a court says Israel are in breach of laws or committing was crimes, nothing is being done about it anyway. No sanctions, no punishment. And if you say anything against Israel, you’re anti semitic.
@Ciaran O Donoghue: Israel is allied with NATO. No NATO member state is going to do anything to weaken their allies. They say a few saber rattling words make it look like they care but will do absolutely nothing to stop it.
@Ciaran O Donoghue: I pointed out one of Israels many war crimes in the Journal the other day. The post that followed said I was a terrorist. McCarthyism is nothing on that lot. And before they jump down my neck, yes I have done, and do, condemn 7th October attacks.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: nobody cares about your comments, get a life
@Auld Lad: Well you obviously care enough in that you had to respond.
@Fr. Fintan Stack: Palestianian support for october 7th attacks has risen to 70% according to some media polls. So who are you kidding with your selective outrage. No neighbouring country will accept its residents with good reason.from the sea to the river is their solution!
@Barney: @Fr. Fintan Stack: It is certainly the Israeli who are the terrorists, and always were.
The Israeli are colonial settlers in the land of the Palestinian, and have no more right to any of the land of Palestine than do those who left our shores long ago have any right to any of the land of Ireland.
The Palestinian are the descendants of those who REMAINED in the region.
It was the Israeli colonial invader who established terrorist groups – such as Haganah, The Stern Gang and Irgun – and proceeded to terrorise the Palestinian to drive them off their land, and their government to steal their homeland.
And have been continuing their terrorism on the Palestinian since.
The Palestinian are merely trying to defend themselves from the colonial racist Israeli terrorism, as would we all do in similar circumstances. We would be ashamed if we did not.
The only reason I can see that some support the Israeli is that the Palestinian had the gall to change their religion.
Or Racism, pure and simple.
But if you have a different excuse, then feel free to tell us.
Justice demands the restoration of all the land of Palestine to the Palestinian and the holding to account the Israeli for their crimes against humanity.
@William Slevin: 8 civilizations occupied Palestine before it was established. Jews bought small percentage of land from Ottomens which is a better legal claim. Of the two states established, Israel has Arabs and Muslims living and working within, Palestine has zero jews living or working within.
@William Slevin: the jews settled and worked the land, forming a state based on the Ottomon and then British allowing them to do so. Every right to be there. Just like Northern ireland it has been established. but palestine rejected a two state solution in 1995 oslo peace accord, similarities stop there. One side does not want to negotiate and only wants death. What options are available?
@Barney: Don’t know where you got your 70% rise figure from. But if true, do you wonder why it has risen? Can Israel not see the futility of their genocide? Sowing the seeds for the next generation.
I hope the mixer won’t start Monday morning and I get the day off…
@brian o’leary: who will bake all the cakes?
@Sean Money: Greggs?
Interesting how some NCT centres are affected and not all of them. Are they not on the same system or are some taking advantage of the situation.
Shows how reliant modern society is on technology..looks like this major outage was the result of a major technical error and not the actions of Chinese or Russian hackers….Update should be tried on a closed test system first surely?
Surely this is putin
@Sean Money: Putin seems to be living rent free in your head.
@Ger Whelan: well you keep defending the monster. Why?
@Sean Money: Please direct me to where I defended him?. The bull s you type is unreal
Liquourland…what a name!
@Barry Murphy: Australian?
@Barry Murphy: I’ve been there. It’s only alcohol they sell. Most misleading name ever!
‘… but cardholders can still top up in shops’… if you live near a shop or can access one! Not everyone lives in the city or suburbs.
Couple of gremlins in the system there. Ghosts in the machine. Perhaps a metaphor for……….
They want a cashless society, these type of people incidents show why cash needs to be retained. You are more likely to be robbed online now than on the street & a cashless society hands control over to Financial Institutions & Govts, all of which have shown worldwide, that they can’t be trusted. Now even the technology cannot be trusted, that manages everything from cash to flights in mid air.
Running an update on live servers first was never a good idea.
Being back windows xp.
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