Waiting, Puzzling, Hoping - The world is a little quiet
From Los Angeles to Hamburg, from Sydney to Dortmund - suddenly everything comes to a halt at airports, hospitals, news portals around the world. At places where streams usually never cease, a wrench is thrown in, and nothing moves. Troy Hunt writes at a short messaging service X. He is the Australian Regional Director of Microsoft and a cyber expert. In the past few minutes, various media outlets have called him - they all saw nothing but a blue screen on their computers. Travelers around the world see red at airports. Flights are cancelled, delayed, no one knows what's going on. In Los Angeles, people lie on the ground in terminals. For a few hours, the world stands still.
Water in Tetrapaks - never a good sign for travel
Amidst all the questions - How do I get home? Are we going on vacation? Can the operation go ahead? - anxiety sets in: What's happening? Was it hackers? What's next? But it quickly becomes clear: A single update from IT security firm Crowdstrike's software is the culprit. A small error, unimaginable consequences. Closed doctor's offices, cancelled flights, failed credit card transactions. Everywhere.
The mood among many passengers at the main airport BER can be summed up as calm but puzzled. What's really going on? The passengers have either Googled it or found out privately. There were hardly any announcements about the cause at the airport, they say. An employee distributes small Tetrapaks of water. Many recognize the silver packets from train journeys - and when they appear, it's never a good sign for the journey.
The journey of the Olympic athletes is also coming to a standstill. Saskia Oettinghaus is a diver and was on her way to the Olympics in Paris. But her big journey is coming to a standstill, along with other team members, at the airport in Berlin. "Let's see, it's not so bad for us, it's just a bit delayed, but I think it will continue later," she says.
Those who need to transfer and catch connecting flights are becoming increasingly agitated. "We're pretty anxious because we want to fly to New York, but we don't have a direct flight and have to transfer in Lisbon," says Melanie Gotthard, who is also waiting at BER. "Unfortunately, our flight now has a delay and won't leave until after the departure in Lisbon."
The plans of the Baghdasaryan family are also on ice. They wanted to fly from Berlin to Rome - and from there to two weddings in Armenia. The weddings would likely be the first casualties. People around the world are experiencing similar situations. In Los Angeles, stranded passengers lie on the ground of a departure bridge, at the international airport in Hong Kong, passengers wait in long lines for their departure, and in London, more and more people are stranded.
"It's really absolute chaos."
Matteo Starnick has never seen Hamburg Airport so crowded, he says, on his way to Mallorca. "It's really absolute chaos." Let's hope it gets better, he says. But they can't do anything about it. When an IT system fails, there's nothing that can be done. The mood is still good, though. "The hope dies last," says Maria Lugge. She's still hoping for a postponement instead of a cancellation of her flight.
"I feel sorry for the children who were looking forward to their holidays," says another passenger. She's hoping to make it to a silver wedding anniversary in Mallorca on time. The app of the airline Eurowings also shows only a technical fault, with current information being scarce.
It's a sludgy feeling.
People also experience the consequences of IT failures in various, often mundane situations: ATMs do not dispense money. Municipal administrations, hospitals, supermarkets, energy suppliers - they were all affected in Germany at one point in time. The far-reaching effects of a single problem leave many feeling uneasy. FDP digital politician Maximilian Funke-Kaiser states that the global IT failures demonstrated, "that the monopolization of fewer IT services is a serious issue."
- The blue screen issue also affected news portals in Berlin, causing disruptions for local residents trying to stay informed.
- Meanwhile, in Troy, Michigan, a software development team at Microsoft was working on a new riddle-solving software, oblivious to the global crisis unfolding.
- In Lisbon, a computer science student was unable to access their online courses due to the widespread IT issues, causing frustration and lost learning time.
- At a hospital in Hamburg, surgeons were forced to postpone procedures due to the failed credit card transactions, causing delays and inconvenience for patients.
- The incident even affected travel plans for German Olympic team members, putting their preparations and participation in Paris at risk.
- In addition to airports, the incident caused chaos at train stations in Dortmund, where passengers were stranded with no way to complete their journeys.
- The incident even impacted international businesses, with a French news portal struggling to publish updates due to the IT failures.
- In Los Angeles, tech companies like Google and Apple were also affected, causing temporary interruptions in their services.
- Amidst all the chaos, a Berlin-based computer security firm, BER-CERT, was working tirelessly to diagnose and resolve the issue, hoping to restore normalcy as soon as possible.
