Disruption to air traffic control systems is being reported around the world. Preliminary reports say a computer glitch may be causing the problem. Issues have arisen in the US, Spain, Germany, Australia, and elsewhere, with authorities forced to cancel takeoffs and landings due to safety concerns.
The outage was first reported about midnight CET on Thursday night/Friday.
The failure may have been caused by a software update that locks Microsoft operating systems and is reportedly not restricted to airlines. Some banks, emergency services, broadcasters, and financial institutions are also said to have been affected.
Computers using Windows 10 OS are reportedly crashing and showing “the blue screen of death” (BSOD) after an update for a security product provided by the firm CrowdStrike. The company is reportedly working on resolving the issue.
Brody Nisbet, CrowdStrike’s chief threat hunter, has offered a workaround to deal with what he called a “faulty channel file” related to the Falcon Sensor cybersecurity app.
CrowdStrike is a company based in Austin, Texas arguably best known for being hired by the Democratic National Committee to analyze the alleged hack on its servers during the 2016 presidential election campaign. The firm concluded that Russia was responsible, setting the stage for the ‘Russiagate’ claims that Donald Trump had colluded with Moscow to beat Hillary Clinton.
The outage has apparently affected the Irish airline Ryanair, Spain’s main airport operator Aena, the London Stock Exchange, British news network SkyNews, and others.
Some Russian entities, such as the Domodedovo airport in Moscow, have reported that they were not affected by the disruption.