Televisions, airports, railway operators, the stock market… Many sectors are experiencing major IT failures this Friday, July 19. Microsoft announced that a global outage was affecting business customers. “Our services are being improved as we continue to take mitigation measures,” the tech giant wrote on the social network X (formerly Twitter). It specifies that several companies have been affected, particularly Australian ones.
The country’s top cybersecurity watchdog has confirmed that a large-scale technical outage has hit the IT systems of several companies, including ABC Australian Broadcasting, Sydney Airport and a major supermarket chain. It was caused by a problem with a “third-party software platform used by the affected businesses,” the office of Australia’s national cybersecurity coordinator said in a statement. Public broadcaster ABC said its systems were crippled by a “major” problem.
Photos posted online showed long queues at Sydney Airport, the country’s largest international airport, which told AFP that some flight operations and airport services were affected. Some self-checkout terminals at one of the country’s largest supermarket chains were displaying error messages. Finally, telecommunications company Telstra said some of its systems had been disrupted.
London Stock Exchange hit
This giant outage is also affecting many services and infrastructure in Europe. Berlin airport said it had closed air service due to a technical failure. Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport also said air traffic was disrupted to and from its runways. Similarly, Air France’s operations are “disrupted at certain stops”, but Paris airports, the main entry points to France for the Olympic Games, seem to have been spared.
KLM has suspended “largely” its operations, while all Spanish airports are affected by the global computer outage. Major US airlines, including Delta, United and American Airlines, also grounded all flights early Friday due to a communications problem, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Ryanair, like three Indian airlines, reported major disruptions.
In the UK, the largest rail operator is being hit by IT issues leading to potential last-minute cancellations. “We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our network,” the four rail companies in the Govia Thameslink Railway group announced on social media. “Other key systems, including our real-time customer information platforms, are also affected,” the message continued, urging passengers to check before their journey.
The London Stock Exchange was also hit by a technical problem on Friday morning affecting its market information platform, while the display of the FTSE 100, its main index, was delayed at the opening. “The RNS news service is currently experiencing a global technical problem linked to a third party, preventing the publication of information,” according to a note published on the London Stock Exchange website. “Technical teams are working to restore the service. The other Group services, including the London Stock Exchange, continue to operate normally,” it said.