As the Windows IT outage on Friday (19 July) shuttered systems all over the world, Singapore’s HDB carparks were not spared.
HDB said in a Facebook post in the evening that about 185 — or 10% — of HDB estate carparks were affected.
Source: Housing & Development Board on Facebook
Barrier arms had to be lifted to allow trapped motorists to exit the carparks.
Driver Jaames Yeo posted on Facebook at about 5pm saying that he was trapped in a season parking HDB carpark for about 30 minutes.
At least 20 cars were stuck with him, he said, as every gantry displayed the same error message: “No Entry Record”.
Source: Jaames Yeo on Facebook
Responding to a comment, he said the carpark was near the Central Manpower Base (CMPB) along Depot Road.
The town council was unable to help and he couldn’t get through to HDB via phone, he added.
Eventually, a woman used tools to remove the barrier to let cars out.
A commenter on his post said the same thing occurred at a multistorey carpark along Depot Road as well until a driver removed the barrier.
This was reportedly happening all over Singapore, as a woman and her husband told The Straits Times (ST) that they were stuck in a Toa Payoh carpark for 20 minutes until the damaged barrier was detached by a rider.
Another driver had to wait about 10 minutes with nine other cars in Tiong Bahru till the carpark operator instructed them how to lift the barrier.
In its post, HDB said as part of “contingency plans”, the barrier arms of affected parking gantries were lifted “to allow motorists to enter and exit the carparks expeditiously”.
SG Road Vigilante on Facebook shared photos of open barriers at some HDB carparks, with motorists enjoying “free parking” there.
Source: SG Road Vigilante – SGRV on Facebook
Drivers who remove malfunctioning barriers need not worry about prosecution. HDB said in a 2018 Facebook post that “no action will be taken” against a motorist who pushed open a carpark barrier that malfunctioned and trapped him in the carpark.
The barrier arm is designed to be detachable as a “fail-safe measure” for such situations, it added.
Source: SG Road Vigilante – SGRV on Facebook
HDB said the affected carparks were managed by one of its carpark operators.
It apologised for the inconvenience caused and sought “understanding and patience” from motorists as it worked with the service vendor to resolve the issue.
The issue wasn’t limited to HDB carparks — an Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) spokesman told Lianhe Zaobao that about 11 of its carparks were affected.
To clear the queue, their barriers were immediately raised, with no charge levied on motorists.
The widespread IT outage was caused by a software update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, one of the world’s most popular cybersecurity firms.
CrowdStrike Chief Executive Officer George Kurtz said on X that a “defect” was found in a “single content update” for Windows hosts.
Source: George Kurtz on X
He denied that the issue was due to a security incident or cyberattack, adding,
The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency has outlined four steps that users and administrators of affected systems can take to circumvent the issue.
In a statement on Friday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said some of the Republic’s major financial institutions experienced disruptions to internal-facing systems used by staff.
However, critical systems were unaffected in all cases and no or limited impact on customers was reported.
“Access to the SGX’s (Singapore Exchange’s) post-trade system was temporarily disrupted, but other critical trading and clearing services were not affected,” MAS added.
The Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) said in a statement on Friday that Singapore Government services are not affected.
Neither are local banks, telcos and hospitals, it added.
However, several companies in Singapore delivering services to the public were affected, including check-in services for airlines, the publishing of newspapers and carparks.
Local newspaper The Straits Times has also been affected by the outage, it said.
MDDI is monitoring the impact of the outage and assisting companies to help them recover.
Also read: Traveller in India given handwritten boarding pass as worldwide IT outage affects airports
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Featured image adapted from Jaames Yeo on Facebook and SG Road Vigilante – SGRV on Facebook.
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