The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | July 19th, 2024: World Crippled By Historic Tech Outage & Iranian-Backed Houthis Strike Tel Aviv

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:    The world was rocked by what may be the largest tech outage in history, which knocked out operations for airlines, emergency services, banks, media companies, and more on Friday morning, and exposed the glaring global risks posed by our technologically interdependent modern economies. The Houthis of Yemen have launched their most provocative strike yet, hitting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv with an advanced drone that was able to dodge multiple layers of air defenses, suggesting the militants are upgrading their munitions with an assist from their backers in Iran. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin.  Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's Friday, 19 July. Welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First, a crippling global tech outage caused worldwide havoc, and when was the last time you heard anybody say havoc, and left industries from travel to finance reeling on Friday morning, and it all came down to a single faulty update that caused millions of Microsoft Windows devices to fail. Also, the Iranian-backed Houthi militants, remember them in Yemen, have launched their

most provocative strike yet, hitting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv with an advanced drone that was able to dodge multiple layers of air defenses, suggesting that the militants are upgrading their munitions with an assist, of course, from the Iranian regime and the IRGC. But first, our afternoon spotlight. The world was hit by what may be the largest tech outage in history, which knocked out operations for airlines, emergency services, banks, media companies, and more on Friday morning and expose the glaring global risks posed by our tech interdependent modern economies. Given the scale of the outage, many initially thought a major cyber attack was unfolding. However, the culprit was, well, actually much simpler.

A single faulty software update from the global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike apparently triggered the breakdown across systems using Microsoft Windows services, that's according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Users and companies across the U.S. and the world reported widespread forced device restarts, with many devices unable to restart, instead locked on a blue error screen, often referred to as the, quote, blue screen of death. The impact was seismic. Millions of Microsoft Windows devices simultaneously crashed in the early hours of Friday morning in countries from the U.S. to China and Australia and, frankly, everywhere in between. globally, more than 2,700 airline flights were canceled, and more than 21,000 were delayed, after airlines were forced to temporarily ground flights at nearly every major international hub,

including Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, and Berlin. As of this afternoon, flights are starting to get airborne again, but the backlog from the grounding while it's causing delays and cancellations to snowball. In other sectors, banks and financial services companies, in Australia, India, and Germany were warning customers of disruptions, while global stock market traders were noting major problems in executing transactions, particularly when it came to the London Stock Exchange. One trader told Reuters, quote, we are having the mother of all global market outages. Meanwhile, millions of people worldwide were left without access to emergency services or healthcare.

In the UK, for example, booking systems used by doctors crashed, and in the U.S. many 911 and non-emergency call centers were completely down. Major media companies were also affected with Britain's Sky News apologizing to viewers after their broadcast cut out. Government agencies also suffered impacts with foreign ministries from the Netherlands to the UAE reporting disruptions to their systems. Representatives for CrowdStrike, which is one of the largest global providers of malware and virus protection, quickly responded that the outage was not a, quote, security

incident or cyber attack, and said that they installed a fix that will help restore services to users. Still, depending on the type of systems affected, it could reportedly take weeks to recover. Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said Friday, quote, we're deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused. Many of the customers are rebooting the system and it's coming up and it'll be operational. It could be some time, however, for some systems that won't automatically recover, end quote. industry experts said the fallout from the outage is only just beginning to set in, noting it will probably go down as the biggest global tech outage in history. One unnamed tech CEO told Reuters it was a, quote, unmitigated disaster. Now, the fact that a single software update brought the

world to a grinding halt is putting a spotlight on our technological global dependence and all the risks that come with it. Cybersecurity experts warned that it serves as a stark reminder that we are just one mistake or hack away from being plunged into a digital dark age. Siaran Martin, the former head of the UK National Cybersecurity Center, told Reuters, quote, this is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world's core internet infrastructure. I'm struggling to think, she said, of an outage at quite this scale. All right, coming up after the break, the Houthis of Yemen have launched their most provocative strike yet, hitting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv with an advanced drone.

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak, and get your trip right. Kayak. Got that right. Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. The Iranian-backed Houthis of Yemen are once again on the offensive, striking deep inside Israeli territory for the first time since the war broke out in Gaza. A long-range Iranian-made drone hit the Israeli city of Tel Aviv early Friday morning, killing one man and injuring at least 10. The drone detonated at the heart of the city near the U.S. embassy, blowing out the windows of

cars and causing shrapnel to rain down on the surrounding area. It marked the first lethal strike by the Houthis inside Israel and set off alarm bells within the IDF, as the drone was able to dodge multiple layers of Israel's sophisticated air defense system. That's according to our report from the Associated Press. The Houthis in Yemen have targeted multiple Israeli cities in their relentless attacks over the past nine months, but Israel has intercepted the drones and rockets, which have struggled to even reach Israel's southernmost city of Velaat. The fact that this drone crossed much of the country before finding its target suggests that the Houthis are upgrading their military capabilities with, of course, the help from their backers in Iran. The Houthis immediately took

credit for the attack, claiming that they used a new drone called the Yafa, which is reportedly designed to travel long distances and is equipped with technology to evade Israel's air defense systems. Israel's military subsequently identified the drone as an upgraded Iranian Samad 3 drone, though officials are still investigating how it successfully slipped through their defenses. As I mentioned, no missiles were fired to intercept the drone, and to make matters worse, no air raid sirens went off to warn residents of the impending attack. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Friday, quote, we are investigating the mishap, why we didn't identify it, attack it, and intercept it. end quote. He added that their defensive system did appear to detect the drone, but an unspecified

error occurred that prevented interception. An anonymous official told the AP, while the investigation is ongoing, the failure was due to, quote, human error. Now, the attack from the Iranian-backed Houtis, who say they're acting in solidarity with Hamas terrorists in Gaza, came just hours after Israel took out a senior Hasbullah commander in an air strike in southern Lebanon. Israel has kept their focus on Hezbollah and Lebanon and Hamas and Gaza, allowing Western allies to focus on the threat from the Yemen-based Houthis, though this latest attack could change that strategy. The Houthis are also still wreaking havoc with attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, which they've vowed to continue until there's a ceasefire in Gaza. Their attack on Israel also comes just a week

ahead of Prime Minister Netanyahu's planned trip to the U.S., where he is scheduled to address Congress, regarding the war in Gaza and the regional threat posed by Iran. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Friday, 19 July. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. And, of course, as has been reported in all the major news outlets, another episode of the PDB Situation Report airs tonight at 10 p.m. on the first TV. And will be available, of course, also on all podcast platforms and our YouTube channel at President's Daily Brief. This week, we're taking an in-depth look at the assassination

attempt on former President Trump. Our guests include former senior FBI and National Security Council officials. Make sure to tune in. Tell your friends and family. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back with this weekend's BDB situation report. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because Behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story.

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