Amid widespread outages affecting major airlines and banks globally, UAE authorities issued a warning on Friday, urging Crowdstrike software users to avoid any software updates until further notice.
“We inform you that there is a technical defect in the Crowdstrike software update that may affect the electronic systems of the institutions that use it,” stated the UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority in a post. Users are advised not to perform any updates or downloads until the problem is resolved. Crowdstrike, a US-based cybersecurity technology firm, serves major institutions worldwide.
In Australia, media, banks, and telecom companies experienced outages, which the government linked to a Crowdstrike issue. When Reuters contacted Crowdstrike’s technical support, a recorded message acknowledged awareness of crashes on Microsoft’s Windows operating system related to its Falcon sensor, though it did not mention Australia specifically.
Michelle McGuinness, Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator, stated there was no indication the outage was a cybersecurity incident.
The impact was widespread, with Spain reporting a “computer incident” at all its airports. Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned passengers of potential disruptions, affecting “all airlines operating across the network,” without specifying the disruptions’ nature.
AWS, a cloud service provider, issued a statement saying it was “investigating reports of connectivity issues to Windows EC2 instances and Workspaces within AWS.”
It remains unclear whether all reported outages were connected to Crowdstrike issues or if other factors were at play.
