SKY News has been thrown into chaos this morning amid a mass global IT outage.
The channel’s usual live morning programme did not make it on-air for hours and was briefly replaced by a documentary repeat.
SkyUsual programmes disrupted[/caption]
MicrosoftWider IT issue has seen the dreaded blue screen of death popup on people’s screens[/caption]
Live broadcasts have now returned, albeit without any graphics.
During the outage, Sky News went to a blank screen with their logo and a message reading: “We apologise for the interuption to this broadcast.
“We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly.”
Sky Sports News Presenter Jacquie Beltrao tweeted on X: “We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying.”
Similar issues have affected broadcasters in Australia too, as well as airlines and banks globally.
It all comes as a huge IT outage struck companies across the world on Friday, seemingly linked to an error affecting Microsoft Windows machines.
The technical glitch has left many with the dreaded “blue screen of death”.
Other companies impacted include Ryanair, which has warned of “potential disruptions across the network” due to a global third party system outage.
Microsoft 365 has confirmed they are investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access apps and services.
“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” the company wrote on X.
“We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue.”
It’s not thought the problems are linked to a hack attack but may be related to issues at cyber security company CrowdStrike, according to cyber security expert Troy Hunt.
“Some are attributing this to security services offered by CrowdStrike,” said Professor Jill Slay from the University of South Australia.
“Others attribute it to Microsoft or Amazon Authorities and industry will be monitoring, but at this stage it is too early to draw conclusions.
“While the outage may easily be a result of misconfiguration by one of these companies, or ‘interference’ between products, the global impact is enormous.
“It is possible that there is a security breach, but to me, this is instinctively unlikely.”
A spokesperson from Sky News told The Sun: “Sky News has not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, we apologise for the interruption.
“All the news is still available online, on the Sky News app, website, and across our social media accounts.
“We are working hard to restore all services.”
Sky News returned to screens at around 8.50am UK time, with presenter Anna Jones saying: “A major global IT outage is impacting many of the world’s largest companies, including us here at Sky News.
“The system failure is believed to have been caused by a flawed anti-virus update although nothing as yet has been confirmed.”
What is CrowdStrike?
The global cyber outage affecting TV channels, banks, hospitals, airports and emergency services appears to relate to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
IT security firm CrowdStrike ran a recorded phone message on Friday – saying it was aware of reports of crashes on Microsoft’s Windows operating system relating to its Falcon sensor.
A prerecorded message said: “Thanks for contacting CrowdStrike support. CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows… related to the Falcon sensor.”
CrowdStrike, headquartered in Austin, Texas, says it is a global security leader which provides an advanced platform to protect data.
A CrowdStrike update on Friday is said to have caused a critical error in Microsoft operating systems, affecting millions worldwide.
The company regularly updates systems with new anti-virus software.
Cyber expert Troy Hunt told Australian TV network Seven: “It looks like they’ve pushed a bad update, which is presently nuking every machine that takes it.”
