November 21, 2024

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Passengers crowd in front of the ticketing counter of Eastar Jet at Jeju International Airport following the massive disruption to Microsoft systems, Friday. (Yonhap)

Following the mass global tech outage linked to Microsoft that disrupted critical public services and grounded planes, 10 companies affected in Korea have restored their operations or are on their way to recovery, said industry officials on Sunday.

A faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike was released worldwide to Microsoft's Windows operating systems on Friday, resulting in “blue screen of death” crashes and systems being knocked offline in airports, hospitals and governments over the weekend.

In South Korea, three budget carriers, Eastar Jet, Jeju Air and Air Premia; game companies, including Pearl Abyss, Ragnarok Online and Ragnarok Origin; and individual users of Xbox consoles and Xbox PC Game Pass were affected by the tech outage, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.

As of Sunday, the three budget carriers have recovered their operations, according to the Transport Ministry.

On Friday, the ICT ministry and Korea Internet and Security Agency launched an emergency response team. Though the incident did not result from a cyber attack, the ministry also reinforced monitoring systems for increased risks of malicious attacks.

The Ministry of Science and ICT also issued an emergency announcement informing users who experienced the disruption to delete the botched software update file under Window's Safe Mode.

The tech outage created long lines of passengers waiting to receive their flight tickets in airports in Korea and handwritten plane tickets were handed out.

According to the Transport Ministry, a total of 92 flights operated by the three budget carriers were delayed on Friday. Delays occurred for 31 flights departing from Incheon International Airport, and 61 flights were delayed in other airports in Korea, including Gimpo International Airport and Jeju International Airport.

The budget carriers that suffered system failure used Navitaire, a reservation platform based in Microsoft's cloud service.

Flights operated by foreign airlines, such as Delta Airlines, United Airlines and Air France, arriving in or having a layover in Korean airports also suffered delays.

Major IT and telecommunication firms in Korea, which are obliged by law to report system disruptions, did not report any cases of trouble linked to the global tech outage. The 26 companies include the three major mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT, LG Uplus, and key platform operators, including Naver, Kakao and Google.

Banks and financial institutes here were also unaffected by the outage due to using their own data centers.

According to a blog post by Microsoft, it is estimated "that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.”

"While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services."

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)