Author: SKYNEWS

Close to one million customers of deals website Wowcher have been refunded £4m, the competition regulator has said. The company has also agreed to change its sales practices, which the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was concerned could mislead or unfairly pressure consumers into making quick purchases. Money latest: New mortgage deal allows friends, parents and even aunties or uncles to help you get a loanConcern about business practicesThe online retail and experiences platform used countdown clocks and claims such as “Running out!” and “In high demand!” to encourage buying but the CMA said the “overwhelming majority” of products on…

It could take “weeks” to fix a global IT outage which grounded more than 5,000 flights, an expert has warned, as the full impact of the software bug becomes clear.The outage spread globally on Friday morning after an update from global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many Microsoft Windows PCs offline with a “blue screen of death” appearing on screens. The issue caused travel cancellations and left NHS systems inaccessible.The company’s founder later confirmed it was caused by a bug in the update and not a cyber attack, as some had feared.Follow live: Major services affected by global outage Image: Blue…

The mass global IT outage has exposed the vulnerability of modern daily life when technology fails. The chaos, which impacted businesses and services worldwide, from GP appointments and flights to news broadcasts and online payments, is thought to have been triggered by a security software update rather than any kind of deliberate cyber attack by a hostile state of malicious individuals. However, given the scale of the disruption, this disaster demonstrates just how powerful cyber and software could be if used as a weapon.Follow live: Major services across the world affected by outageIt is why any actual act of war by…

With the London Stock Exchange Group impacted by the global outage, the usual market data is not available to bring a comprehensive update of what’s happening with companies.But the financial market reaction is clear: share prices are down across the board as the impact of system failures rips through businesses across the world. IT outage live updates: Security firm finds cause of global ‘disaster’Major stock market indexes – which give a picture of company performances on a particular stock exchange – are down as many airlines, train companies, banks, tech firms and media businesses struggle to function.Across Europe, the French…

Transport networks around the world have been thrown into chaos by the global IT outage. Some of the world’s largest airports, including London Heathrow, Singapore’s Changi Airport, Schipol Airport in Amsterdam and Melbourne Airport in Australia have faced problems with check-ins and security as online systems run by Microsoft shut down. As of 11am (UK-time) Friday morning, 1,167 flights were cancelled worldwide, with the number expected to rise, according to data from aviation analysts Cirium.Read more:Outages latest: Follow liveWhat has been impacted and where?Major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines grounded all flights on Friday morning…

The CrowdStrike IT outage has been devastating for commerce, healthcare and transport because it was entirely agnostic in the services it affected. This was not a sector or function-specific glitch, like the unconnected interruption to CHAPS transactions overseen by the Bank of England the previous evening. To have a problem, irrespective of where you were in the world or the industry you were in, all you needed was to be running devices on a Microsoft network with CrowdStrike protection.Follow live: CrowdStrike rules out cyber attack as world copes with tech ‘disaster’ Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player…

This wasn’t supposed to happen.We were told that as the internet matured, that this kind of thing – a single error causing a domino effect taking out millions of machines – was supposed to become less and less likely. There would be more and more servers and cables distributed in more and more places, making a single point of failure increasingly unlikely. Global IT outage latest: ‘Huge increase’ in 999 callsInstead, what today’s episode – in which an update from a company called CrowdStrike to customers using its services around the world essentially broke the Windows operating system on their…

CrowdStrike, the company at the heart of the IT outage being described as the worst the world has seen, has been a darling of Wall Street over the last year.So far in 2024, its share price has risen by 96%, making it one of the best-performing stocks on both the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the broader S&P 500 index – to which it was recently admitted – meaning the company was valued at £84bn as at the close on Thursday night. Money blog latestHow CrowdStrike thrilled investorsWhat thrilled investors was how the company, based in Austin, Texas, sold itself as a…

It’s been an extraordinary day of cancelled flights, disrupted businesses, problems for healthcare and TV stations not being able to get on air (ahem). And all because of an update for Microsoft Windows. So what caused one of the biggest IT failures ever seen – and what do we know about Crowdstrike, the company which released the update?Ali Fortescue’s in for Niall to discuss it all with our science and technology editor Tom Clarke and data and forensics correspondent Tom Cheshire.👉 Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts 👈 For further background from Sky…

With the tech outage impacting transport systems worldwide, many find themselves experiencing delays of unknown duration and possible cancellations. If this were two years ago as travel reopened after COVID-19 lockdowns there’s a good chance travellers could claim back from airlines for trips those companies cancelled due to capacity issues. Global IT outages latest: Security firm CrowdStrike rules out cyber attack as world copes with tech ‘disaster’But as this is an extraordinary (and indeed unprecedented) circumstance, compensation is not payable for flight delays or cancellations.Airlines, however, do have a duty to take care of passengers caught up in the chaos.…