‘Largest IT outage in history’ caused by US-based cybersecurity firm

The Sydney Morning Herald - David Swan and Eryk Bagshaw

Updated July 20, 2024 — 3.58amfirst published July 19, 2024 — 4.00pm

A worldwide cyber crash described as “the largest IT outage in history” brought down computer systems across Australia and parts of the world, crippling airport check-ins, supermarkets and emergency information services.

The outage struck just after 3pm on Friday, triggering delays at airports around the country and world, hampering internet banking systems and forcing laptops across the globe to suddenly shut down.

The outage was caused by a fault in the “Falcon sensor” used by US-based cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike. The sensor is installed on many business computers to gather security data. The fault had a major impact on Microsoft systems worldwide.

Late on Friday, CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz apologised for the software update that caused chaos around the globe.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travellers, to anyone affected by this,” Kurtz told the Today Show in the US.

Kurtz said CrowdStrike had identified the bug and remediated the issue.

“Now we are working with each and every customer, to make sure that we can bring them back online,” he said.

Richard Buckland, a professor in cybercrime at the School of Computer Science and Engineering UNSW, said the crash was a worst-case scenario.

“This is more serious than a cyberattack, really, because it shows our systems aren’t even proofed against randomness,” he told the ABC.

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