The situation, mainly at airports, is returning to normal today after a massive failure in IT systems caused major problems in transport, in the media, in the stock markets, and put workers around the world into temporary unemployment for technical reasons.

In France, the situation at Roissy and Orly airports, the two largest entry airports for foreign delegations participating in the Paris Olympics, which begin on Friday, July 26, is being monitored closely.

“The situation has returned to normal levels at all airports in France,” Deputy Transport Minister Patrice Vergriet said in a social media post today.

Overall, the sky is clearing. Many Asian airports were reporting “normal” or “near normal” operations as of Friday night local time, mainly in South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong or the Philippines.

Some “issues remain” causing persistent delays in Sydney however and “five flights” of low-cost carrier Jetstar to Japan were disrupted today.

Berlin’s international airport, the worst-hit in Germany, is operating almost normally again.

Some travelers are still unable to use the automatic check-in machines, however, due to “consequences of the problems with the airlines” and will have to return to the counters, an airport spokesman told AFP.

During last night, special permission was given for 19 flights, in order to facilitate departures.

In the United States, emergency services were affected in at least three states and 2,400 flights were canceled yesterday, Friday.

“According to our information, flights have resumed across the country but some congestion persists,” a government official told reporters.

About 1,280 connections have been canceled so far in the United States, where the day has just begun, according to the latest counts.

The cause: a flawed update of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems by the American cyber security company CrowdStrike, which excludes the possibility of a cyber attack or a problem in the security of IT systems.

“The scope of this breach is unprecedented and will without a doubt go down in history,” underlined Junade Ali, a cyber security expert, who spoke to AFP.

“I personally apologize to all organizations, all groups and all individuals who were affected,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told CNBC yesterday.

In a blog post, CrowdStrike explains that a Windows update was released Thursday night that caused a “system crash and blue screen.” That update was fixed after 78 minutes, says the company, which publishes recovery tips on its blog that Microsoft advises customers to “follow.”

“We understand how this issue occurred and are conducting an in-depth analysis of the causes,” CrowdStrike added. “We will update our findings (…) depending on the progress of the investigation.”

Another consequence of the breach was that hackers tried to take advantage of the chaos by sending fake messages in order to obtain personal data, according to German, British or Australian cyber security agencies.

“It’s one of the rare times where a piece of security software is the cause of such a big breach,” commented Kaisar Daer, another cybersecurity expert AFP spoke to.

The scope of the phenomenon is explained, he said, by the fact that “Windows is extremely widespread, and so is CrowdStrike.”

After briefly disrupting the operation of the IT systems of the Paris 2024 Olympics, including the accreditation system but not the ticketing system, operations were “back to normal” as of yesterday afternoon, Friday, according to organizers.

“The IT system of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games did not collapse a priori, so if there are some malfunctions here or there that is the least of it,” an official of the French sports movement told AFP.

According to Tesla chief Elon Musk, the failure caused a “cardiac arrest in the automotive industry’s supply system.”

Television networks in France or Australia and several hospitals in the Netherlands were also affected resulting in the closure of an emergency department and the postponement of surgeries.

Stock markets around the world fell on Friday, reflecting concerns over the damage, preventing indexes in London and Milan from recapturing their volatility for a good part of the day.

In New York, CrowdStrike shares closed down 11.10% and Microsoft shares fell 0.74%.

CrowdStrike relies heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning and primarily offers a digital protection platform under the Falcon brand.