The international delivery expert Parcelhero is warning that the Crowdstrike cybersecurity firm outage, which impacted many Windows-based systems, could have serious knock-on effects for global supply chains and deliveries.
A worldwide IT outage on Friday could create severe knock-on effects for global supply chains, warns the international delivery expert Parcelhero. The outage, understood to be caused by an issue with an update at cybersecurity giant Crowdstrike, impacted many Windows-based systems. It could lead to widespread disruption to supply chains and deliveries across the world, Parcelhero warns.
Parcelhero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘Many airports, ports, railways and retailers reported problems as a result of the IT outage.
‘Delayed flights and issues with IT systems at airports will impact airfreight. Not only will slots for dedicated airfreight flights be disrupted, but many international goods and packages are transported not only in specially designed cargo planes but also in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. 1,000 flights globally were reported to have been cancelled by Friday mid-morning.
‘International ports have also been impacted by the issues. For example, Poland’s largest container terminal, the Baltic Hub in Gdansk, asked companies to stop sending containers to the port, saying “…a global Microsoft operating system outage (that) is hampering terminal operations.” Delayed and out-of-position containers are never good, as many people will remember from the global shortages created by the Suez Canal blockage caused by the ship “Ever Given” back in 2021.
‘Similarly, across the UK and globally, there are reports of many delayed and cancelled rail services. In the UK, for example, Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and Southern were among the major operators reporting problems. Freight trains have to be threaded between passenger services and so are likely to face disruption.
‘Retailers also experienced problems. The supermarket chain Morrisons reported payment issues, for example, although these were largely resolved by mid-morning. The bakery and coffee shop chain Gails also had to suspend in-store purchases. Perhaps more concerningly, UK community pharmacies were impacted by the outage.
‘Time will tell the extent of disruption to international trade and industry caused by the global IT issue. It’s believed that a Crowdstrike update caused a BSOD loop on some Windows machines, meaning they repeatedly booted and crashed. The problem was that many systems updated automatically overnight. Crowdstrike is reported to have rolled back the update and the company stated on Friday morning that “a fix has been deployed”. However, it could be some time before its impact has been resolved on all systems, as IT staff may need to physically access individual machines to boot them into safe mode and remove the update file.
‘Parcelhero’s international services use all the leading global courier networks. If there is an issue with one international carrier’s services, customers will be able to select from many other operators to that destination. For more information, see https://www.parcelhero.com/en-gb/international-courier-services
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