Global IT outage hit 9 firms, 5 agencies in Malaysia, says Gobind

 

The outage on Friday caused long queues at several airports as some airlines experienced disruptions. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: 

A total of five government agencies and nine private companies in Malaysia were affected by the global information technology (IT) outage on July 19, digital minister Gobind Singh Deo said.

The transport ministry, education ministry, rural and regional development ministry, the National Institute of Health and the Kedah Zakat Board were among those affected, Bernama reported him as saying.

The nine private companies impacted were from the aviation, banking and healthcare sectors.

All data in the government sector is secure. There have been no leaks, and we have not observed any issues regarding data integrity,

 he told a press conference.

However, Gobind said there had been a phishing attempt during the IT outage, which the government successfully prevented.

The outage occurred on Friday with millions of Windows systems failing and showing the infamous blue screen of death, reportedly due to a software update bug from CrowdStrike Holdings, a cybersecurity technology company used by Microsoft.

Major institutions, including banks, media channels and hospitals in several countries, were also reportedly affected by the global IT outage.

The global IT outage caused chaos at airports, with Capital A Bhd CEO Tony Fernandes venting his frustration on LinkedIn as airlines were forced to check in passengers manually.

Fernandes acknowledged CrowdStrike’s apology but emphasised that airlines were still waiting for an explanation from Microsoft about the incident.

“Tech companies have little empathy. After what we went through with Covid-19, they had no sympathy (then). Now they have issues and expect us all to understand.

Well, I’m not going to. Airlines need answers and compensation,

 he said. - FMT