“Extremely troubling”
What is behind the global Microsoft outage that caused the worldwide outage? Experts are looking for the real cause of the power outage, as all major banks, businesses and news channels were affected, and say a cyber attack should not be ruled out as a possibility.
Microsoft was hit by a «massive cyberattack event» where computer outages significantly impacted business around the world, the Daily Mail writes, noting that at least 48 Australian services were affected by outages on Friday afternoon, including supermarkets, banks , telecommunications companies, streaming services and computers. But Britons are also beginning to realize that Microsoft's software and hardware are also being affected, with airports, railways and healthcare facilities reporting problems.
Computers of all sizes are constantly crashing and displaying the Blue Screen of Death.
Experts are now revealing the cause of the massive power outage, saying we can't rule out a cyber attack.
Experts are now revealing the cause of the massive power outage, saying we can't rule out a cyber attack.
On Friday afternoon, computers across Australia began to periodically fail and display a “blue screen of death,” writes the Daily Mail.
Among those affected were customers of stores including Woolworths and Bunnings, as well as banks such as NAB and Commonwealth, as well as telecoms and streaming services and home and work computers.
Meanwhile, flight departures boards at airports were not working , prompting airline employees to recommend that customers use Google when departing.
Dr Mark Gregory, an associate professor in RMIT University's school of engineering, said the glitch was caused by Crowdstrike's security software, which caused the computers to crash.
An update to one of CrowdStrike's software products, called Falcon, is believed to be «locking up» the computers running Windows, rendering them inoperable.
«The near-global outage appears to have been caused by a failure of systems associated with Crowdstrike Falcon endpoint security monitoring software.
“Crowdstrike is a global, multinational software solutions provider,” explained Dr. Gregory. “In Australia, many businesses and organizations have found their software systems to be down due to software failure. “Reliance on global, centrally managed software solutions can lead to significant security risks.»
Office plankton took to the social network X/Twitter to celebrate being able to leave work early on Friday because their computers weren't working, the Daily Mail notes.
While Australia was the first to feel the brunt of the blackout, Britain also faced chaos on Friday morning when Sky News was unable to broadcast live coverage.
Departure boards at Gatwick and Edinburgh airports suddenly went offline, with NHS staff saying they logged on to find non-clinical systems were down, meaning patients were unable to book appointments.
Blackburn Rovers football club even tweeted that its online ticketing system was experiencing glitches that were «beyond our control.»
Jake Moore, a technical expert and security consultant at ESET, agreed. that it was likely a «technical error» by Crowdstrike, but said we could not rule out a cyber attack.
«At this point it is likely to be a serious technical failure, but the fact that it is possible is extremely concerning,» he told MailOnline. «If anything, it would make threat actors take notice of this particular outage and the potential the damage it could cause.»
Professor Jill Slay, head of cyber security at the University of South Australia, said it was «too early to draw conclusions» at this stage, but an attack was not impossible.
< p>«While the outage could easily be caused by one of these companies misconfiguring or 'tampering' with their products, the global implications are huge,» she said. «It's possible that this is a security breach, but in my mind it's instinctively unlikely.»
Cyber expert Troy Hunt told Seven News that the catastrophic crisis had not affected all Microsoft Windows computers, but many of them.
Hunt said CrowdStrike makes anti-virus products that are regularly updated with new virus definitions.
«They operate in a very privileged space on PCs, which means they have a lot of control. It looks like they launched a botched update that is currently wiping out all the computers that use it.»
«For It may take some time for these computers to be restored in a timely manner.»
The National Cyber Security Coordinator, who advises the Australian government on cyber policy, informed users that the outage was not due to a hack.
The statement said: «There is no information to suggest this was a cybersecurity incident. Our current information is that this outage is due to a technical issue with the third-party software platform used by the affected companies.»
Microsoft 365 released this update. «Our services continue to see continuous improvement as we continue to take corrective action. We still expect users to continue to experience incremental relief as we continue to resolve the issue.»< /p>
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