BANKS, AIRLINES, MEDIA OUTLETS HIT BY GLOBAL OUTAGE LINKED TO WINDOWS PCs

A closely watched meeting of China’s leaders in Beijing this week provided nothing concrete by way of supporting the world’s number two economy.

The Third Plenum, which meets twice a decade to decide key policies, saw few policy announcements, with state news agency Xinhua saying they had agreed to “prevent and resolve risks in key areas such as real estate, (and) local government debt”.

They also vowed to “actively expand domestic demand” days after data this week revealed retail sales — a gauge of consumption — rose far less than expected in June.

Economists at HSBC said: “The communique’s emphasis on ‘opening up as a distinctive feature of China’s modernisation’ is worth noting. We expect the government to prioritise reforms that will facilitate foreign investment.

They pointed to persistent cross-border outflows, which are weighing on the yuan, and noted that the currency would likely remain under pressure owing to the big difference in US and Chinese interest rates, which makes it harder to attract investors.

“With the (yuan’s) yield disadvantage likely to stay wide for longer, China needs more opening-up and market-oriented policies to attract or retain foreign investment.

“This may help reduce imbalance in cross-border flows, and thus alleviate (yuan) depreciation pressure.”

Shares in Hong Kong fell owing to a lack of policy detail, though Shanghai eked out a gain. There were also losses in Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai, Bangkok, Taipei, Wellington and Jakarta.

Paris and Frankfurt fell while London’s FTSE 100 retreated after opening late having been hit by technical issues, with services around the world including airports, rail operators, banks, media and shops also affected.

The disruption caused major US airlines to ground all flights over “communication issue”, the Federal Aviation Authority said.

Tech titan Microsoft said it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service issues.

It was not clear if those were linked to the global outages.

The announcement came as Australia reported a large-scale outage of IT systems, with the country’s national broadcaster, its largest international airport and a major telecommunications company reporting issues.

The major outage grounded flights in the United States, derailing television broadcasts in the UK and impacting telecommunications in Australia.

Major US air carriers including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded all flights on Friday over a communication issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Flights were suspended at Berlin Brandenburg airport in Germany due to a “technical problem”, a spokeswoman told AFP.

“There are delays to check-in, and flight operations had to be cancelled until 10:00 am (0800 GMT),” the spokeswoman said, adding that she could not say when they would resume.

All airports in Spain were experiencing “disruptions” from an IT outage that has hit several companies worldwide on Friday, the airport operator Aena said.

Hong Kong’s airport also said some airlines had been affected, with its authority issuing a statement in which it linked the disruption to a Microsoft outage.

The UK’s biggest rail operator meanwhile warned of possible train cancellations due to IT issues, while photos posted online showed large queues forming at Sydney Airport in Australia.

“Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening,” a Sydney Airport spokesman said.

“We have activated our contingency plans with our airline partners and deployed additional staff to our terminals to assist passengers.”

Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said the “large-scale technical outage” was caused by an issue with a “third-party software platform”, adding there was no information as yet to suggest hacker involvement.

Sky News in the UK said the glitch had ended its morning news broadcasts, while Australian broadcaster ABC similarly reported a major “outage”.

Some self-checkout terminals at one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains were rendered useless, displaying blue error messages.

New Zealand media said banks and computer systems inside the country’s parliament were reporting issues.

Australian telecommunications firm Telstra suggested the outages were caused by “global issues” plaguing software provided by Microsoft and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Microsoft said in a statement it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service issues.

It was not clear if those were linked to the global outages.

“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said in a post on social media platform X.

CrowdStrike could not immediately be reached for comment.

University of Melbourne expert Toby Murray said there were indications the problem was linked to a security tool called Crowdstrike Falcon.

“CrowdStrike is a global cyber security and threat intelligence company,” Murray said.

“Falcon is what is known as an endpoint detection and response platform, which monitors the computers that it is installed on to detect intrusions (i.e. hacks) and respond to them.”

University of South Australia cybersecurity researcher Jill Slay said the global impact of the outages was likely to be “enormous”.

All airports in Spain are experiencing “disruptions” from an IT outage that has hit several companies worldwide, the airport operator Aena said.

“Because of an IT system incident, disruptions are occurring in Aena’s systems and at airport networks in Spain that could cause delays,” the operator said on X.

“This global technical incident is mainly affecting passenger reservations and information,” the company added, saying some operations are continuing thanks to “manual systems”.

“We continue to work with all affected parties to repair this as soon as possible,” it said.

The Spanish state owns 51 per cent of Aena, the world’s largest airport operator in terms of passengers served, with more than 60 airports including 46 in Spain.

The outage comes at the height of the summer tourist season for Spain, the world’s second-largest tourist destination, after France.

Flag-carrier Air France said it was facing IT-related disruption on several of its services, but not at the Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports serving Olympics host city Paris.

Airline KLM says most operations were suspended due to an IT outage

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Dutch airline KLM announced on Friday that it was forced to suspend a large part of its operations due to a global IT outage.

“KLM, like other airlines and airports, has also been affected by the global computer outage, making it impossible to handle flights,” the company said. “For now, we are forced to suspend most of the operation.”

Hong Kong’s airport said that some airlines had been affected, as widespread technical problems were reported by flight operators around the world.

“A Microsoft outage that has disrupted the service of airlines worldwide is affecting some of the airlines at Hong Kong International Airport,” the Airport Authority said in a statement.

“Flight operations at (Hong Kong’s airport) have not been affected.”

A message on flag carrier Cathay Pacific’s website said that flight booking and redemption services were “currently unavailable”.

Its subsidiary HK Express said self-service check-in facilities and departure control systems had been affected.

“Due to a global service outage of Microsoft, Navitaire, our global e-commerce system has been affected,” the airline said on its official Facebook page.

HK Express said it had reverted to manual check-in processes after its website and mobile apps were affected.

Amsterdam’s Airport Schiphol, one of the busiest airports in Europe, said it was affected by the outage, which also affected Eindhoven airport, the Transavia airline and Dutch hospitals.

“There is currently a global computer failure. This disruption also has an impact on flights to and from Schiphol. The impact is now being mapped,” an airport statement said.

The UK’s largest rail franchise is facing “widespread IT issues”, its four train lines said, warning of possible cancellations, as companies reported outages globally.

“We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network”, the four lines operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) posted on X.

“We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations,” it said, adding that customer information platforms were also affected.

The four rail networks — Southern, Gatwick Express, Thameslink, and Great Northern — serve areas across London, east England, south England, and Britain’s second-busiest international airport London Gatwick Airport.

GTR said its IT teams were “actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem”, which hit Friday morning commuter services.

Other transport systems across the UK faced similar IT issues, with Ryanair experiencing disruption due to “a global third-party IT outage”.

British airports including London Luton and Edinburgh warned of longer waiting times for passengers because of the glitch, while Sky News television was temporarily off air.

There were also reports that National Health Service computer systems for general practitioners were affected.

Five Indian airlines announced disruptions to their booking systems, matching widespread technical problems reported by flight operators around the world.

“Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage,” IndiGo, the country’s largest airline by market share, said in a post on social media platform X.

“During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted.”

National carrier Air India said its systems had been “impacted temporarily due to the current Microsoft outage”, causing travel delays.

Budget operator SpiceJet said it had reverted to manual check-ins and boarding after “technical challenges”.

“Our teams are diligently working with our service provider to resolve these issues promptly,” the airline said.

Delhi Airport in India’s capital said it was “working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience” to passengers.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that passengers were “stranded” in the coastal holiday hotspot Goa as a result of a technical glitch with the airport’s check-in system.

The outage wrought havoc on IT systems across Australia and New Zealand, causing travel delays, hampering television broadcasts, and forcing supermarket systems offline.

Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said the “large-scale technical outage” was caused by an issue with a “third-party software platform”, allaying initial fears of hacker involvement.

Photos posted online showed large queues forming at Sydney Airport, which told AFP some airline operations and terminal services had been affected.

“Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening,” a Sydney Airport spokesman said.

“We have activated our contingency plans with our airline partners and deployed additional staff to our terminals to assist passengers.”

Christchurch International Airport in New Zealand similarly said it was “experiencing IT issues across a number of our systems which may affect flight arrivals and departures”.

New Zealand said banks and the computer network inside the country’s parliament had also been affected.

Australia national broadcaster ABC said its systems had been crippled by a “major” glitch, derailing some television and radio broadcasts.

Some self-checkout terminals at one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains were rendered useless, displaying blue error messages.

Telecommunications firm Telstra said some of its systems had been disrupted, possibly impacting emergency services that used its network.

Telstra said it was caused by “global issues” impacting software provided by Microsoft and American cyber security company Crowdstrike.

Microsoft and Crowdstrike could not immediately be reached for comment.

University of South Australia cybersecurity researcher Jill Slay said the global impact of the outages was likely to be “enormous”.

AFP