Britain faces a FAR worse threat than Microsoft’s IT meltdown – ‘system failures’ are just the start of it, expert says
BRITAIN faces a far worse threat than Microsoft’s huge IT outage with the growing use of AI, an expert has warned.
Tom Cheesewright, an applied futurist and tech consultant, says the scale of such IT issues will worsen as reliance on artificial intelligence grows.
His warning comes as major airports, airlines, railways and supermarkets have today been hit by a global IT outage.
The suspected CrowdStrike issue has seen Microsoft services crash worldwide, affecting millions across the UK and further afield.
Speaking to The Sun, Mr Cheesewright said AI “increases the likelihood of bad code being created”.
He said: “inevitably we’re going to be reliant on more AI biased based systems that are in the cloud that do rely us to be connected, and it is going to create increase if you like, the scale of problem that that we experience when something like this happens.
“So we’re going to have to be very, very cautious about spreading our systems around.”
The IT expert added: “As with any technology, it’s gonna have positives and negatives, and which one wins out depends on how we deploy it.
“Take AI in this case, for example. If AI puts the powers of coding in the hands of many more people, it put the powers of creating good code in the hands of more people, but also bad code in the hands of many more people.
“The likelihood of more bad code being created and creating situations like this with AI is there, yes.
“But if the AI is used well, it picks up on human mistakes and reduces the chance of it.”
Today’s outage has been described as the “largest in history” by one security consultant.
How the IT outage is affecting the world…
- American Airlines, Delta, and United planes told to stay in the air as global Microsoft outage grounds flights
- Watch the moment Sky News is pulled off air after ‘tech issues’ plague show
- Major airports, airlines, railways and supermarkets hit by the suspected CrowdStrike issue
- Britain’s GPs are cancelling appointments as the NHS EMIS Web system goes down
- Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Suncorp, Microsoft 365, Foxtel and the ABC all among those affected
- Government holds an emergency COBRA meeting as Whitehall crisis officials work on IT outage
- Airport staff are being forced to use whiteboards to show flight times and give out handwritten boarding passes
- Shops are reporting not being able to take card payments with some putting up ‘cash only’ signs on doors
Troy Hunt posted on social media: “I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history.
“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.”
It comes as cybersecurity experts say it could be days before the disruption caused by the outage comes to an end.
Researcher Kevin Beaumont said: “As systems no longer start, impacted systems will need to be started in ‘Safe Mode’, to remove the faulty update.
“This is incredibly time-consuming and will take organisations days to do at scale.
“Essentially we have one of the world’s highest impact IT incidents caused by a cyber-security vendor.”
Around the world, banks, supermarkets and other major institutions reported computer issues disrupting services, while many businesses were unable to take digital payments or access key databases.
Across England, GP surgeries have also reported being unable to book appointments or access patient records as their EMIS Web system went down.
Global services affected by IT outage
Trains
- Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) – urged passengers to expect disruption due to “widespread IT issues”
- Gatwick Express – warned travellers they are “currently experiencing widespread IT issues”
- South Western Railway – all ticket vending machines are currently non operational – buy tickets online
- National Rail – some train operators are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice train cancellations
- TransPennine Express – some TPE stations and systems are having IT issues – buy tickets online
- New York City’s MTA system affected
- Washington D.C Metro trains – delayed
Airports and airlines
- Manchester Airport – delays for those checking-in for Swissport flights
- London Gatwick – passengers may experience some delays while checking in and passing through security but should still arrive for their normal check-in time
- Ryanair – advise passengers to arrive at the airport three hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions
- Edinburgh Airport – wait times longer than usual
- Stansted Airport – some airline check-in services reverted to being done manually, but main operational systems are unaffected and flights are still operating as normal
- Luton Airport – running manual systems
- Heathrow Airport – affected but flights operational – check with airline on latest journey information
- American Airlines – all flights cancelled
- United and Delta – no flights taking off
- Allegiant Air and Spirit Airlines – flights grounded
- Frontier and SunCountry – affected by outage
- San Francisco Airport – passengers reporting suspended flights
- Mumbai Airport – check-in desks shut down for IndiGo, Akasa and Spice Jet flights
- Australian airline Qantas – flights grounded
- Schipol Airport in Amsterdam – flights to and from the Netherlands affected
- Spanish airport association AENA – reported issues at 42 airports
- Rome’s Fiumicino Airport affected
- Ibiza Airport – empty due to IT outage
- Hamburg Airport in Germany affected
- BER Berlin Airport – Long queues
- The Hague Airport in Rotterdam – travellers experiencing longer wait times
- Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo – check-in delays
- Palma Mallorca Airport affected
- Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok – longer queues reported
- Hong Kong Express Airways passengers delayed at Hong Kong International Airport
Television Networks
- Sky News – Friday morning breakfast show unable to air but now back on screens with reporter reading from printed notes
- Paramount Global channels including MTV, VH1, CMT and Pop TV – bumped offline.
Britain’s GPs
- The Wilmslow Health Centre in Cheshire – without access to their IT systems
- Solihull Healthcare Partnership in the West Midlands – affected ability to book/consult with patients this morning
- Central Lakes Medical Group in Ambleside – stated there has been a “big effect” and delays on the phone expected
- Pocklington Group Practice in the East Riding of Yorkshire – appointments needing to be cancelled and rearranged
- Hulme Hall Medical Group, in Stockport – unable to offer any appointments
- Windrush Medical Practice in Witney, Oxfordshire – continuing as normal for urgent enquiries but ask for routine concerns to wait until Monday
- Grimethorpe Surgery in Barnsley – no access to the clinical system, EMIS Web
- The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) confirmed the IT outage is disrupting community pharmacies
- A surgery in Putney, southwest London – Displaying an error message online to patients who attempt to book
Global hospitals
- Two German hospitals have been forced to cancel emergency operations
- The hospitals, in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel, cancelled all elective operations scheduled for today
Supermarkets and restaurants
- Morrisons are affected
- Some Waitrose and Co-op are now cash only
- Gails and Waterstones experiencing some issues
- Wetherspoons pubs – only accepting cash
- Woolworths and Coles supermarkets in Australia – self service machines not working
Events
- Manchester United ticket release postponed – morning’s ticket release will be postponed until midday and website will remain unavailable
Banks and supermarkets in Australia including Beyond Bank Australia have also been experiencing issues this morning.
Various Microsoft services in Japan and New Zealand are also battling tech issues.
At airports, flights were cancelled and staff forced to check in passengers manually on specific flights to help ease long queues.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) said “services in community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today”.
And earlier in the day, Govia Thameslink Railway – parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern – warned passengers to expect delays.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, the firm at the centre of the global outage, has said he is “deeply sorry” for the incident.
However, he also warned it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.
George Kurtz said a fix had been deployed for a bug in an update rolled out by the cybersecurity firm.
An emergency Cobra meeting was held at official level – rather than ministers – on Friday morning to discuss the chaos, with a further gathering expected later.
Ministers are being kept updated and are in touch with their sectors to tackle the fallout from the IT failures.
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh saying she was working “at pace with industry” after trains and flights ground to a halt.
