Flights resume after global IT crash wreaks havoc

Planes were gradually taking off again on Saturday after global airlines, banks and media were thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus program.

Passenger crowds had swelled at airports on Friday as dozens of flights were cancelled after an update to a program operating on Microsoft Windows crashed systems worldwide.

By Saturday, officials said the situation had returned virtually to normal in airports across Germany and France, as Paris prepared to welcome millions for the Olympic Games starting on Friday.

Multiple US airlines and airports across Asia said they had resumed operations, with check-in services restored in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, and mostly back to normal in India, Indonesia and at Singapore’s Changi Airport as of Saturday afternoon.

Microsoft estimated Saturday that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected in the global IT crash, adding that the number amounted to less than one percent of all Windows machines.

“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services”, it said.

Microsoft said the issue began at 1900 GMT on Thursday, affecting Windows users running the CrowdStrike Falcon cybersecurity software.

Australian, British and German authorities warned of an increase in scam and phishing attempts following the outage, including people offering to help reboot computers and asking for personal information or credit card details.

Thousands of US flights were grounded.