Chaos continues around the world after the biggest information systems collapse in history, which occurred during a company security software update. Collective strike for Microsoft Windows.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still seeing blue screens on their computers as air carriers continue to experience disruptions. More than 1,600 flights have been canceled so far. At the same time, hospitals and other organizations are struggling with their electronic systems going offline.
Beyond service and supply chain issues, however, a new risk has begun to emerge. Cybercrime is here and ready to strike.
Warnings from authorities in Australia and Great Britain
The Australian National Security Authority (ASD) today issued a warning about hackers trying to steal data and money from victims of the digital blackout. They are essentially trying to “fish” them, promising to solve the problem, claiming to be experts wanting to help or employees of CrowdStrike.
“Alert! We understand that several malicious websites and unofficial code are being published that claim to help entities recover,” the alert reads. The service encourages those experiencing issues to use the CrowdStrike website directly for information and assistance.
ASD’s warning follows a similar warning from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Starting yesterday, the service urged users to be extremely wary of suspicious emails or calls purporting to be seeking help from CrowdStrike or Microsoft.
“We have already seen an increase in phishing related to this outage as opportunistic malicious actors look to take advantage of the situation,” the agency said in a statement.
Flight cancellations
Meanwhile, queues at airports in Britain, Germany, India, the US and other countries continue.
As of Saturday morning, 1,639 flights had been cancelled, adding to the 6,855 flights cancelled in total yesterday. This represents 6.2% of all scheduled flights.
Around 10 billion the blow to Crowdstrike’s capitalization
CrowdStrike saw its market cap shrink from $83.48 billion late Thursday to $72.68 billion early Friday morning. It closed Friday night at $74.22 billion, covering some of the losses.
Its shares took a beating, falling as much as 20% at one point before finally closing down around 11%.
→Read more: When Google, Facebook, quickly “fall” and the digital land is lost beneath our feet