Microsoft IT outage live: Total recovery from CloudStrike failure ‘could take weeks’ amid more flight delays

IT experts warn it could take weeks for global tech infrastructure to fully recover after a botched software update brought down systems worldwide.

The massive disruption to Microsoft systems has included flight delays and cancellations , as well as impacting hospitals, banks, supermarkets and millions of businesses.

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), the equivalent of the UK's GCHQ, has issued an alert about hackers sending out bogus software fixes claiming to be CrowdStrike, with mutiple other warnings that criminals are seeking to exploit the outage .

Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned it could take "weeks" for all computers and systems to be fully restored. “In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly,” he said. “But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting into blue screens... that could take days and weeks.”

It comes as more than 1,500 flights were cancelled around the world on Saturday, including at least 45 to and from the UK – affecting thousands of passengers.