Saudi airlines face 'minimal' impact of CrowdStrike glitch

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia authorities on Saturday said that airlines in the kingdom were not significantly impacted by the technical glitch that disturbed flight operations across the world, local media reported.

According to a report by the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA), the impact of the glitch on Saudi Arabian national entities was ‘minimal’

The NCA maintained that aggressive steps are in place to monitor and address cyber risks because of the leadership’s strong support. Increasing technical sovereignty and national capacities is one of these initiatives.

“By safeguarding vital infrastructure and national entities, the cybersecurity guidelines set forth by the NCA have improved the security and dependability of the Kingdom’s cyberspace,” the NCA said.

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, and Cluster 2 Airports have resumed regular operations, according to a statement released by Matarat Holding Company.

The authorities advised the travelers to contact airlines for updates on their flights and to review the passenger rights charter approved by the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

The glitch

The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a malicious software update on Friday that caused thousands of Microsoft Windows systems all over the world to brick and severely disrupted a number of services.

The Microsoft outage connected to the catastrophic CrowdStrike software upgrade impacted a lot of things, including credit card payments, emergency services, stock markets, and air travel.