Tech

Maga fans plunged into travel chaos as tech outage hits Milwaukee Airport

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5 months ago

July 19, 2024

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Maga fans plunged into travel chaos as tech outage hits Milwaukee Airport

SCORES of Maga supporters have been spotted battling their way out of Milwaukee Airport, just hours after a global tech outage sparked thousands of flight cancellations.

Thousands of Republicans descended on Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention, where Donald Trump accepted the party’s 2024 nomination for president.

Passengers waited for hours at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on Friday, after airlines grounded flights due to a worldwide tech outageCredit: Getty

Much of the energy shown by Maga supporters at the RNC earlier this week had dissipated as they waited for airlines to fix tech issuesCredit: Reuters

Images of Trump could be spotted across the airport on FridayCredit: Getty

Companies across the world were affected by the outageCredit: Reuters

During his acceptance speech, the former president gave a detailed account of his brush with death following the shocking assassination attempt on his life by a lone shooter at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday.

On Wednesday, he appeared behind the podium with a large white bandage over his ear — where the sniper’s bullet grazed him — rousing the 50,000-plus people in the audience with his message of taking back the country and overcoming the country’s biggest challenges.

But hundreds of attendants who stayed in town until the end of the week faced another type of unexpected hurdle — long flight delays.

Thousands of planes were grounded on Friday when Microsoft went down due to a faulty update issued overnight by the global cyber security firm Crowdstrike — stranding travelers at airports across the country.

LARGEST OUTAGE IN HISTORY

The glitch shut down airports, banks, hospitals, and countless other companies and industries reliant on the technology for basic functioning.

Times Square’s iconic multistory screens were dark for hours Friday morning, making the tech outage glaringly obvious to the tens of thousands of passersby who stream through the square every day.

Computer chaos may take ‘weeks’ to repair after bad update shuts down shops, airlines and TV channels

Already branded as possibly the “largest IT outage in history,” the blackout caused at least 7,000 flights to be delayed and over 2,400 flights to be canceled in the US alone, according to FlightAware.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University‘s Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, told Reuters.

“This is historic,” Mikko Hypponen, the chief research officer at cyber security company WithSecure, told the New York Times.

“We haven’t had an incident like this.”

The estimated cost of even a partial worldwide internet blackout for 20 hours is a mindboggling $24 billion — but some experts predict that the total cost could run into trillions of dollars as the extent of the damage becomes understood.

Outage could take ‘weeks’ to resolve

Tech experts have told The U.S. Sun that even though an official fix has been released for the Microsoft outage, problems related to the blackout will continue to last.

Al Lakhani, CEO of security firm IDEE, said that the issues could persist for weeks.

“The fallout from incidents like these can be extensive and prolonged,” Lakhani said.

“In terms of restoring every affected computer to full operation, the recovery could span hours, days, or even weeks.

“This is because it is a supply chain attack. These are particularly damaging because a single compromised software update can impact thousands of organizations globally.

“Leading to severe consequences including service disruptions, theft of intellectual property, and threats to national security.”

Another security expert Adam Pilton told The U.S. Sun that it will take days for bigger businesses to recover.

“Depending upon the size of the organization will determine the recovery time,” said Adam, a senior cybersecurity expert at Cybersmart, speaking to The U.S. Sun.

“CrowdStrike has released a fix and provided guidance which is working for many users.

“For smaller organizations, this will take hours, for larger organizations this may take days to resolve.”

Martin Jartelius, chief security officer at Outpost24, told The U.S. Sun that some affected computers might have to be manually repaired.

“For those impacted, if their systems did not get the erroneous update then that is a positive,” Jartelius said.

“If they did get the update, some seem to be able to get up and running and they will fix themselves.

“Others will currently have a workaround to get the good update and have some hands-on support, including booting into safe mode and removing some files, expect this to be done swiftly for any systems that need a high availability.

“But expect the cleanup in IT departments to potentially drag out over the summer vacation period.

“So, where it really matters, this should not be too hard to fix, but it will cost time and effort.”

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz assured customers early Friday morning that the incident was not due to malware or a cyber attack — just an innocent software issue.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz wrote on X.

“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

The CEO, who is certain to face intense questioning in the coming days about how such a massive outage could happen, avoided going into details about the root cause of the problem and instead emphasized that the company was offering support services to all affected clients.

Times Square went dark due to the global tech shutdownCredit: AP

The black screens surrounding the iconic square created an eerie atmosphereCredit: EPA

CrowdStrike customers around the world have been affectedCredit: AP

Blank blue screens haunted airports across the nation tooCredit: Reuters

“Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” he wrote.

But not everyone is so sure the global glitch can be solved so quickly — security expert Al Lakhani told The U.S. Sun that the problems could continue for weeks.

“The fallout from incidents like these can be extensive and prolonged,” said Lakhani, the CEO of security firm IDEE.

“In terms of restoring every affected computer to full operation, the recovery could span hours, days, or even weeks.”

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.”

CrowdStrike is one of only a handful of global cyber security firms that manage the systems of thousands of the world’s biggest companies and networks, including several Fortune 500 companies.

The company is well-respected in the security world and has battled infamous hackers out of Russia, North Korea, and other countries.

CrowdStrike made its debut on the Nasdaq stock market in 2019.

Friday’s outage saw the company’s stock drop about 10% by mid-afternoon.

Representatives from Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The U.S. Sun.

MAKING HIS MAGA COMEBACK

Trump’s return to the forefront of the Republican Party seemed unlikely after losing the 2020 election and spurring on his supporters to breach the Capitol building during the January 6 protests — but he has always said he would be back.

Former President Donald Trump gave a rousing speech at the RNC just days after surviving an assassination attemptCredit: Getty

The 2024 Republican presidential nominee wore a large white bandage over his ear where the would-be assassin's bullet grazed him — The 2024 Republican presidential nominee wore a large white bandage over his ear where the would-be assassin’s bullet grazed himCredit: Getty

Despite being the only US president in history to be impeached twice and convicted of committing dozens of crimes, Trump has maintained millions of loyal Maga fans and is now well-positioned to challenge the Democratic candidate in November’s election.

The felon’s popularity amongst voters seems to have grown since he survived the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday, narrowly evading what could have easily been a mortal wound.

Recent polls have given Trump a growing lead over the incumbent — currently the largest since the 2024 campaigns began, as reported to CBS.

If the election were held today, Biden would garner 47% of the vote, while Trump would walk away with a convincing 52% of ballots — up 2% from just two days ago, according to the CBS News/YouGov poll.