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Microsoft CrowdStrike outage ripple effects

Even as CrowdStrike shared a fix to solve the Microsoft IT outage that brought down industries world over, people continued to face flight delays or cancellations in major airline hubs such as the U.S. and India over the weekend. In addition to this, cyber security experts warned that phishing attempts might be on the rise, as malicious actors try to exploit the outage by pretending to be technical experts and offering to bring affected systems back to order. Microsoft said 8.5 million devices with the Windows OS were impacted by the incident, stressing this made up less than 1% of all Windows-based machines.

The cause of the global IT outage on July 19 was a CrowdStrike software update that went wrong, shared the cybersecurity company that is based in Austin, Texas. Over the weekend, IT experts and engineers were working with companies across the world to recover the impacted systems and bring them back to normal, raising questions about anti-competitive controls and quality assurance standards in the cybersecurity market.

Illicit chip flows to Russia down

Russia tries to source advanced computer chips and other products in order to support its war against Ukraine, which it attacked in early 2022, but data from the U.S. Commerce Department shows that semiconductors and other clandestine goods shipped to the country via China and Hong Kong fell this year. However, Hong Kong is still used as a port to evade international sanctions, as the region said it was unable to take action on “unilateral sanctions imposed by other countries.” A U.S. government official further added that China was the country’s biggest concern.

Chipmaker Nvidia, which shot to fame as a result of the generative AI boom, said that it stopped sales to Russia back in March 2022 and was compliant with U.S. laws. Intel also said it operates in strict accordance with U.S. export regulations and sanctions.

AI comes to the Paris Olympics

Generative AI will be playing a major role in the 2024 Paris Olympics, as a chatbot developed by Intel in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is set to make its debut during the historic games. Titled AthleteGPT, the chatbot is meant to help Olympic athletes by answering their questions, guiding them through the large venue, and assisting them when it comes to following local rules and regulations.

Intel, a worldwide Olympic Partner since 2017, is also set to support 8K resolution live streaming experiences, so that fans can enjoy low-latency, high-definition streaming for 32 sporting events.