Government urged to hold emergency Cobra meeting over IT outage

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The Government is being urged to convene a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee to respond to the major IT outage hitting airlines, train companies and banks.

Businesses and institutions around the globe have been affected by the issue, believed to have been caused by a faulty update to widely used cybersecurity software.

In the UK, train companies are reporting delays, GP surgeries are unable to book appointments or access patient records and Sky News was knocked off air.

Restaurants in Parliament appear to be affected too, with catering services only accepting cash payments.

The Liberal Democrats demanded ministers co-ordinate an urgent response.

The party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson Christine Jardine said: “The Government must call an urgent Cobra meeting to address the chaos being caused by these IT outages across the country.

“The public needs to be reassured that the disruption to their travel or their desperately needed GP appointments will be minimised.

“Getting critical infrastructure up and running again must be priority number one. The National Cyber Security Centre should also be working with small businesses and other organisations to help them deal with the outage.

“This once again lays bare the need to improve our digital infrastructure and truly modernise our economy in order to prevent the incidents from happening again.”

Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the IT outage was a reminder of the importance of learning the lessons from the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking in the Commons in response to the Covid-19 inquiry’s first report, he said: “Resilience isn’t just about another pandemic but the full range of risks that we face.

“And we’re reminded of that this morning as reports come in of a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media organisations and other organisations.

“It is not easy to know what the future holds. You can’t plan fully for every possible risk. But we must do what we can to learn the lessons of this period.”

The Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defence have been contacted for comment.