(Finance) – Stock exchanges and financial data, health systems, doctors’ offices, hospitals, cable TV and airline flights. malfunctions computer scientistsapparently triggered by a update of the security software of the specialist company Crowdstrikehave caused disruption and delays in many sectors today. The Financial Times calculated that 3,500 flights were canceled worldwide today, 3% of all scheduled flights. Asian and US airlines were the most affected.
Crowdstrike has admitted that a version of its software has created problems for systems running the operating system Windows Of Microsoft. The computers of Apple and those that operate with operating systems based on Linux were not involved and, according to the company’s CEO, George Kurtzit was not a cyber attack. Microsoft reported that the root cause of the problem has been resolved and released guidelines for restoring machines to their pre-Crowdstrike state. The problem is that in many cases this must be done manually, and this can take time.
In Italy, consumer associations have protested the inconvenience suffered. “We want to know exactly what happened and above all what is being done to prevent it from happening again. Cybersecurity cannot be optional, but must become an absolute priority for companies and institutions”, he declared Martina DonationsPresident Udicon. According to Assoutenti even in the presence of causes of force majeure “travelers have the right to correct information and full assistance from airlines. In the event of flight cancellation, carriers must guarantee passengers meals and drinks at the airport, at least 2 telephone calls, hotel accommodation if the scheduled departure time is at least one day after the scheduled departure time, or when the stay becomes necessary, and transportation to the hotels”.
The Unimpresa Study Center reported that Italian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises have only been affected to a limited extent by the global computer block that occurred today. 95% of the associates have not suffered any damage and their activity has continued as usual: “despite the global scale of the interruption, which has affected sectors critics such as airports and banks, the impact on our businesses has been limited”, reads a note from the Research Centre which carried out a monitoring among the over 100,000 associated companies throughout Italy. According to Unimpresa “this scenario reflects a peculiar reality of the Italian entrepreneurial fabric: a significant portion of micro and small businesses operating in our country continue to work mainly offline as far as strictly commercial aspects are concerned. The management of relationships with suppliers, issues relating to payments, invoicing and relations with banks are often conducted through traditional and physical methods, thus limiting the vulnerability of these businesses to technological events”.
According to the experts of the association “while large companies and multinationals have suffered the consequences of the blockade the most, our micro and small businesses have been able to count on consolidated procedures that do not depend exclusively on technologies digital. This more approach traditional has allowed us to maintain operational continuity and stability in the services offered, mitigating the inconveniences that many economic operators globally have had to face”.