PETALING JAYA: A global-wide disruption following system crashes on laptops and desktop computers running the Windows operating system which affected airline passengers and hospital patients among others are slowly recovering.
Earlier, at the height of the disruption yesterday, there were long queues at Terminal 2 at the KL International Airport, with netizens taking to social media after airline counters experienced technical issues.
Many posted videos and photos of the crowds in the terminal.
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Netizens also reported long lines at other airports, including Kota Kinabalu International Airport, with many complaining on X about hours-long queues.
“@airasia Whats wrong with (your) baggage drop system? Been (queuing) for 1 hour now and the line is not moving!!” wrote X user @syahmiadnan11.
System down at KLIA 2. — MUHAMAD SHAHRIL ROSLI/The Star
“Air Asia systems are down more than 2 hours. The Check-in / boarding times are getting increased. Please help us minimise the time in queues,” added @lokesh2607.
The post was accompanied by a photo of counter display screens showing “system down”.
Other users reported that they were unable to purchase tickets on the AirAsia app.
AirAsia later confirmed in a statement that its core reservation and check-in system were impacted by a global IT issue, which affected airlines worldwide.
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“There were no flight cancellations as of 7.30pm,” it said yesterday.
“You may experience slower check-ins and longer queues and we are doing our best to address this situation. We appreciate your patience and understanding during this time,” read the statement issued by the airline.
Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd confirmed that the disruption to its KITS ticketing system and customer service channels was also due to the global IT outage.
Meanwhile, a patient at a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Ruth Campbell, 86, said she had an over two-hour wait for her treatment after she was told that the computer system was down.
“The nurses looked stressed and they were running around doing their best to keep things under control. As soon as the system came back at around 3.30pm, everything went back to normal,” Campbell said.
In Melaka during the outage, Oriental Melaka Straits Medical Centre issued a statement saying, “Our management team is actively working to resolve the situation promptly and will provide updates accordingly”.
The server disruption has since been resolved.
In the city, Kuala Lumpur-based user @wallawaniey shared a photo of her laptop, asking, “Are you okay Microsoft?”
She said she tried restarting the device but “it doesn’t work at all”.
Another Malaysian user, @belleyangcerdik, wrote that her entire office was dealing with blue screens, while @izzat_repeat questioned why this was happening.
Other users responded to the issue with memes as they rejoiced at the chance of leaving work early on a Friday, with some Malaysians saying that this was a chance to “balik awal”.
The issue reportedly affected banking institutions, airlines, telecommunications providers and supermarkets globally, according to a report from UK news daily The Guardian.
According to various reports, Australian telecommunications company Telstra, the Sydney airport and airlines Delta, United and American Airlines were affected.
The report further states that the crashes may be due to a software update pushed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to its digital security platform.
CrowdStrike has since issued an alert, stating that the issues are due to “content deployment” that has since been reverted and advising a workaround fix via its customer forum.
Affected users took to social media platform X to share photos of their frozen computer screens displaying the notorious “blue screen of death”, which suggests a potential system failure.
