A “significant” number of the 8.5m devices affected by last week’s global IT outage are back online, according to the cybersecurity company at the centre of the incident.
CrowdStrike said it was also testing a new technique to reboot systems more rapidly, amid warnings from experts that a full recovery from Friday’s IT failure could take weeks.
On Friday, thousands of flights were cancelled, broadcasters were forced off air, healthcare appointments disrupted and millions of PCs failed to start after a CrowdStrike software update inadvertently crippled devices using the Microsoft Windows operating system.
CrowdStrike wrote in a social media update that it had made progress in fixing the consequences of a glitch that, according to one expert, had caused “the largest IT outage in history”.
“Of the approximately 8.5 million Windows devices that were impacted, a significant number are back online and operational,” the US company said.
CrowdStrike added that it was testing a new method to “accelerate impacted system remediation” and working to get companies and organisations a means of accessing that technique.
On Sunday, Australia’s home affairs minister said CrowdStrike was “close to rolling out an automatic fix to the issue with their update, as is Microsoft”.
On Friday, experts had warned that repairs to affected PCs would have to be carried out manually, potentially prolonging the recovery.
In the US, more than 1,500 flights were cancelled for the third successive day on Sunday, with Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines in particular struggling, while in the UK 45 flights were cancelled on Saturday.