
Broadcasters are among the victims of a global IT outage reportedly linked to a virus software updated for Windows PCs that has paralyzed multiple businesses, including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies and those connected to travel infrastructure.
Australia’s Sky News, ABC and Network Ten, NBC in the United States, and Sky News and CBBC in the United Kingdom are among the major broadcasters affected.
The BBC says reports suggest that a cybersecurity company called Crowdstrike, which produces antivirus software, issued a software update that backfired and is bricking Microsoft Windows devices — prompting the so-called “blue screen of death” on PCs.
Shortly before midday BST, Microsoft issued a statement saying that the underlying cause of the global outage had been fixed, but the residual impact of cybersecurity outages would continue to affect some Office 365 apps and services.
This story was updated at 12:45 BST on July 19.