‘Day the world stood still’ and ‘holidays in chaos’
News Desk
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The cybersecurity bug that caused IT outages around the world on Friday dominates the front pages. The Daily Mirror says the issue was triggered by an update of Microsoft Windows and calls it the “day the world stood still”.
The bug hit GPs, hospitals, banks, planes, and trains, the i reports. The paper says 4,300 flights were cancelled and 30,000 were delayed on the “busiest holiday weekend”.
The Financial Times says the bug also left financial services workers unable to log in to their computers and caused some television channels to go off air. The paper says the update was being carried out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and quotes one security consultant saying: “I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history.”
The Daily Express says the incident could take days to fully fix and will cause “many billions” in costs.
The “meltdown shows the peril of going cashless”, according to the Daily Mail. The paper says almost half of Britons now leave home with only their phones as a means of payment, but that issues at supermarket checkouts on Friday meant those without cash were unable to buy food.
The Daily Star provides a concise summary of what caused the outage. “Some poor sod in America clicked on the wrong thingummyjig wotsit,” it says.
Some 200,000 people are expected to be hit by the travel disruption, according to the Daily Telegraph. The paper says many will struggle to recoup their costs from travel insurers, who do not typically cover accommodation if travel is disrupted, while airlines may struggle to get people on replacement flights in what was already a busy period.
And the Times reports that Whitehall officials have held a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee to discuss how to mitigate the impact of the outage. The front page also carries an image of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a Russian court, where on Friday he was jailed for 16 years on espionage charges widely considered to be politically motivated. The paper calls it a “sham trial”.
