After yesterday’s worldwide technical problems, today is largely all clear. Global air traffic is running again, and there are hardly any disruptions at Austrian airports. Operations in affected hospitals also resumed almost without issues on Friday. The cause of the outages was a faulty update for Windows users released by the U.S. cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.
At Vienna Airport, 100 out of 780 scheduled flights were affected by the IT problems yesterday, with some significant delays. Of these 100 flights, eleven had to be canceled, the airport reported on Saturday. Due to the glitch, airlines Ryanair, Wizz Air, Eurowings, Turkish Airlines, and Vueling had to conduct their check-in and boarding processes manually. By Friday evening, everything was running normally again. The Vienna Airport board thanked the staff for their efforts and the passengers for their patience while waiting for today’s announcement.
At Graz Airport, which was also affected by the problems yesterday, there are still delays today. Operations at Klagenfurt Airport are back to normal. The situation in Salzburg was also relaxed. “Today is a day of catching up,” commented spokesperson Alexander Klaus about the situation at Salzburg Airport. The last flight arrived on Friday around 11:30 PM, albeit without luggage. Today’s main task is to process or dispatch the leftover shipments. The airport itself was not directly affected by IT problems. This was only noticeable through destinations that had to deal with the computer outages.
In Linz, the global outage was also not noticeable. “We were not affected at all because there was no Eurowings flight,” explained spokesperson Birgit Springer. The system in Upper Austria ran “completely normal,” according to the press officer.
In Austria’s hospitals, operations were largely back to normal by Friday afternoon after the technical outages affected hospitals in Vorarlberg, Tyrol, and Burgenland. The Austrian Medical Chamber (ÖÄK) emphasized on Saturday that the IT problems highlighted the importance of data security. “These widespread outages have shown us how vulnerable our systems can be and how dependent we are on digital solutions,” said Harald Schlögel, executive vice president of the ÖÄK. “Even though the problems in Austrian hospitals and practices were limited, every postponed operation is one too many.”
Schlögel, therefore, appealed to the current and upcoming federal government to apply the highest standards to data protection and security for health data. “Moreover, involving doctors as service providers, who work with these tools daily, is crucial in implementing new digital solutions. Maximum requirements for quality and safety must be set from the outset,” said Schlögel. One step would be creating a national competence center to set and verify the required quality and certification standards. “Yesterday’s incidents underscore the importance of analog backups for hospitals. This ensures patient care,” said ÖÄK Vice President Harald Mayer, who was pleased that the IT problems in hospitals were kept to a minimum and that care was completely unaffected.
Apart from hospitals, critical infrastructure, and large companies in Austria were spared from major IT problems yesterday. The glitch affected companies worldwide using Microsoft’s Windows operating system. According to the U.S. cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, the cause was a faulty update of their Falcon antivirus program. The global impact was significant: airlines and airports worldwide experienced IT problems, leading to some flight cancellations. Hospitals had to postpone operations, TV broadcasters couldn’t broadcast, and cash register systems in supermarkets failed.
