Massive outage causes worldwide chaos as software firm warns full fix could take ‘some time’

An unprecedented global computer outage caused major chaos across Britain and around the world without warning on Friday – grounding thousands of flights, knocking TV stations off air, and leaving patients unable to see doctors. open image in gallery People trying to access the NHS app also encountered problems The National Pharmacy Association, which represents many of the UK’s 9,000 independent community pharmacies, told The Independent that the outage was “affecting nearly all of our members in some way”. Govia Thameslink Railway – the UK’s busiest train operator, which runs the Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern services around London – also said it was experiencing “widespread IT issues”. it’s such a massive impact.” open image in gallery In New York, several of Times Square’s famous billboards were down Dr Lallie warned: “This IT catastrophe highlights the need for greater resilience, a greater focus on backup systems, and possibly even a need to rethink whether we are using the most resilient operating systems for such critical systems.” With many retailers across the globe reporting issues with digital payments, Andrew Goodacre, chief of the British Independent Retailers Association, told The Independent that major IT problems seem “to be happening all too often”. We’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were, and we’ll continue to protect them and keep the bad guys out of their systems.” He added: “Software is a very complex world, and there’s a lot of interactions, and always staying ahead of the adversary is a tall task.” Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.