The situation is gradually returning to normal on Saturday following an unprecedented information outage that caused disruptions for global airlines, banks, and financial institutions, resulting from a flawed update to an antivirus program. Airports around the world were crowded with passengers on Friday after dozens of flights were canceled, while operators made strenuous efforts to continue operations after a flawed update of the cybersecurity software from the American company CrowdStrike caused a global outage upon downloading it to Microsoft Windows operating systems.
By Saturday, officials reported that conditions had effectively returned to normal at airports across Germany and France, as Paris prepares to welcome millions for the Olympics starting on Friday. Several American airlines and airports across Asia reported the resumption of their operations with the return of passenger check-in services in Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Changi Airport in Singapore starting Saturday afternoon.
The head of Thailand's airports, Kirati Kitmanwat, told reporters at Don Mueang Airport in Bangkok that "passenger check-in systems have returned to normal at the five main airports in Thailand. There are no longer the long queues we saw yesterday." Microsoft stated that the issue began at 19:99 GMT on Thursday and affected users of the CrowdStrike Falcon program.
In a statement on Saturday, CrowdStrike said it released an update on Thursday night that caused system failures and the appearance of the notorious "blue screen of death." CrowdStrike stated that it deployed software to fix the issue, and its CEO, George Kurtz, told CNBC that he wanted to "personally apologize to every institution, every group, and every individual affected."
The company added that a full return to normalcy could take a few days. The White House announced in a statement that President Joe Biden's team is in contact with CrowdStrike and the parties affected by the outage and is prepared to provide assistance as needed.