The American technology group Microsoft has "fixed the root cause" of problems with several of its 365 cloud services, it said on its status website on Friday.
Severe computer problems at several companies and institutions caused major IT failures around the world on Friday morning. A security update by CrowdStrike left Windows computers especially affected, leaving them with blue screens that prevented them from starting up.
"Several 365 apps and services are fully functional again." However, "some" applications still have "residual impact", the company said, adding that it is monitoring the situation and taking additional "mitigating measures" with a view to full recovery. "Microsoft continues to treat this event with the highest possible priority."
No cyber attack
Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike's CEO George Kurtz announced that there has been no "security incident or cyber attack".
Crowdstrike performed an update to its security software, causing computers running Microsoft's Windows operating systems to crash. No problems occurred on computers running Linux operating systems or on Apple's Mac devices.
"The problem has been identified, isolated and a solution has been rolled out." Crowdstrike is "actively working with customers who are affected", Kurtz added. "Our team is fully mobilised on ensuring the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers."
In Belgium, the impact of the global computer outage has been "reasonably limited" and broadly "comparable to the impact in other European countries," Miguel De Bruycker, director of the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB), told Belga News Agency. The problem also only affects large companies and organisations, not individuals.
According to De Bruycker, some large government departments have been affected, as well as some transport companies and two airports. Meanwhile, it was also reported that two hospitals were affected by the outage. "Those hospitals then traditionally go into ‘degraded mode’ as a precaution and adjust their services."
- Charleroi Airport was also affected by the outage. Credit: Belga
The problem lies not so much with Microsoft but rather with cyber security firm CrowdStrike, he stressed.
In the meantime, one of the two hospitals in Belgium affected by the computer failure has since returned to full operation. "A final evaluation is still being carried out at the second hospital, but also there it looks like the problems will soon be resolved."
The impact of the malfunction on the hospitals has been very limited, the Public Health Ministry told the Belga News Agency. As hospitals have ICT contingency plans in place, there was no impact on care. It was only decided to temporarily transfer new patients who needed urgent medical attention to other hospitals.
