Dubai: The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) announced late Friday afternoon that its operations have returned to normal following the global IT outage that affected businesses and organisations worldwide.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announces that its electronic systems have returned to normal following the global technical outage, and the attestation service has resumed regular operations,” MoFA shared on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Microsoft IT outage updates
- No indications of cyber attacks amid CrowdStrike outage, says UAE Cybersecurity Council
- UAE airlines, Dubai airports, MoFA, telecoms authority responds to Microsoft outages
- Microsoft global outage: What’s CrowdStrike, and how does it affect you?
- CrowdStrike outage: UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs resumes normal operations
- Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage: UAE's Etihad, Emirates flights may face delays today, say officials
On Friday morning, the Ministry said its electronic systems, including MoFA’s attestation service, had been impacted by the global outage. It advised users to refrain from conducting any transactions until the issue was resolved.
MoFA also advised Emiratis abroad to contact airline companies before heading to airports to verify their flight status due to the global technical challenges that have affected air traffic at some airports.
A global IT failure on Friday massively disrupted businesses and government organisations, grounding planes, knocking out TV coverage, and impacting banks and financial markets. Flights from the US to Hong Kong were affected, the London Stock Exchange paused news updates, and card machines stopped working.
The cause of the widespread chaos, affecting regions from Australia to North America, is under investigation. Several experts suggest that issues with Microsoft might be linked to US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike's CEO, George Kurtz, confirmed that the problem was not a cyber-attack and stated that the issue has been "identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed."
Banks, doctor’s surgeries, supermarkets, and railway companies faced issues as users worldwide encountered a 'blue screen of death.'
