To restore all computers in the global IT disaster may take weeks.
Affected computers must be addressed manually, which will be a tough challenge for companies with thousands of units.
The disruptions began as early as Thursday, but it was on Friday that they spread globally. IT experts call the disaster the largest that has ever occurred.
It was when the global cybersecurity company Crowdstrike sent out an update for the Falcon software to its customers that the problems began. PC users who had Crowdstrike installed on their computer were met with a blue screen with an error message.
Very many of these computers have therefore also crashed, said IT security specialist Karl Emil Nikka to TT on Friday.
Solution may take weeks
The company has since addressed the problem by withdrawing the update. Despite this, the consequences may be long-lasting. The computer problems may take days, if not weeks, to address, reports The Guardian.
According to Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, a manual restart is required and "most standard users would not know how to follow the instructions." For companies with thousands of computers, it is therefore a major challenge ahead.
Even Swedish experts make the same assessment:
When it's this many computers, millions, then we can send all IT technicians in the world – it will still take days or weeks, says Måns Jonasson at the Internet Foundation to SVT News.
How easily the problem can be addressed on the affected computers depends on an important factor, according to Karl Emil Nikka:
If the computer can enter the Windows operating system, then they can do the update. The problem is that if the computers can't even enter Windows, then they can't get the application to update the faulty file.
Air traffic resumes
The disaster brought global air traffic to a standstill with canceled flights and in the US, planes were forced to stay on the ground.
In Sweden, air traffic is flowing well, but there may be follow-up delays, writes Swedavia in a press release to TT.
On Saturday, several American airlines, as well as airports around Asia, reported that they were resuming operations. It is again possible to check in for flights in Thailand, Hong Kong, and South Korea, and the situation was mostly under control at airports in India, Indonesia, and Singapore on Saturday afternoon local time.
Several American ports were closed on Friday, but operations were largely resumed on Saturday, reports CNBC.
