Major tech outage hits S’pore, global businesses; airports, banks, media services disrupted
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Social media is also rife with user complaints of outages on Windows devices.
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SINGAPORE - A major IT outage is affecting companies worldwide, including those in Singapore. There have been reports of service disruptions at airports, media outlets, supermarkets and banks in the US and Australia.
The outage is said to be linked to a flawed software update by cyber-security software provider CrowdStrike, which said that it suffered a major outage on July 19.
The company told US news outlet CNBC
CNBC reported that CrowdStrike is in the process of rolling back a software update behind the outage globally.
There were widespread reports of technical issues across the world as many businesses and users encountered technical issues, such as their laptops showing a blue error screen – otherwise known as the “blue screen of death”.
Screenshots of CrowdStrike’s tech alerts to its customers show the company notifying users to report crashes on Windows devices, adding that symptoms include a blue screen error.
The alerts, which were shared on social media, said CrowdStrike’s engineering teams are working to fix the issue.
Any machine running on the Windows operating system with CrowdStrike’s security software can be affected.
User report website Downdetector.com showed a spike in reports of outage on Microsoft 365, with more than 150 reports from Singapore users at 2pm. Microsoft Azure had more than 50 outage reports from Singapore users, while Amazon Web Services had 20 reports at 2pm.
Australian news publication Sky News reported that Microsoft confirmed on one of its official social media pages that it is investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. It is not clear whether the outage is linked to the same IT issue with CrowdStrike.
The outage has left airports and other business operations at a standstill.
News outlets, including Sky News UK and Australia and the US’ ABC News, were impacted by the outage. The Straits Times is also affected by the outage.
Airports worldwide, including those in Australia, Hong Kong, the US and Singapore, appear to have been disrupted.
In Changi Airport, long queues are seen around check-in counters. Several airlines, including Scoot, switched to manual check-ins as their self-check-in machines went down.
Other services, such as ComfortDelGro’s ride-hailing app Zig and Singapore Post, were also disrupted.
