Global Cyber Outage Disrupts UAE Government Services and DXB Operations

Staff Report: Several online services provided by the UAE Government were disrupted by a global cyber outage that affected major institutions worldwide. Dubai International Airport (DXB) also confirmed temporary impacts on its operations.

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) advised the public on Friday to refrain from making transactions on its online portals due to the “global technical glitch” affecting its electronic systems.https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/uae-govt-systems-dubai-airport-hit-by-global-tech-outage

“Authentication services were among those impacted,” MoFA said. “We advise customers not to make any transactions until this problem is resolved.”

Following this, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) issued a similar advisory, noting issues in some of its digital services. “Our technical team is currently working with the relevant authorities to overcome this challenge,” MoHRE stated.

Despite the system outage that affected the check-in process for some airlines in Terminals 1 and 2, flight operations at Dubai International Airport (DXB) resumed swiftly. “DXB is operating normally after the global system outage,” a DXB spokesperson told Khaleej Times. “The affected airlines promptly switched to an alternate system, allowing normal check-in operations to resume.”

Etihad Airways confirmed that flights were operating as normal on Friday, July 19, despite the global IT issue affecting various organizations. However, the airline warned of potential limited delays across its network due to the disruption.

Emirates reported no immediate delays but indicated possible delays later due to the knock-on effects of delayed departures from other airports. “We are aware of the global IT disruption and are monitoring the situation closely,” an Emirates spokesperson said. “Customers can check our website and app for the latest flight information.”

Flydubai and Air Arabia both confirmed that the global network outage had not impacted their operations. “We continue to monitor closely and are in touch with the supplier,” a flydubai spokesperson said. Air Arabia also reported no impact on their operations and advised customers to check their website for updates.

The outage affected airports in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, India, and major US air carriers, leading to long lines at check-in counters and grounded flights. The US Federal Aviation Administration noted that Delta, United, and American Airlines were among those affected.

The issue reportedly originated from a bad update by US-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, causing PCs and servers running their software to crash.

CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity company, provides cloud-based endpoint protection solutions. “CrowdStrike’s flagship product, Falcon, uses artificial intelligence to detect intrusions across networks and endpoints,” explained Rayad Kamal Ayub, managing director of Rayad Group. “Microsoft uses CrowdStrike for all their software, linking the outage to several Microsoft-run systems being down.”