Thousands of Brits still stranded abroad as more flights cancelled amid computer chaos affecting 8.5 million

The computer chaos which has gripped the world following a massive IT outage has left thousands of Brits stranded abroad as their flights home were cancelled.

If you're wondering what happened, on Friday (19 July) cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike launched an update, which if we're going to use an understatement here, went catastrophically wrong.

The company boss said they'd traced the issue to a 'defect in a single content update for Windows hosts', which was causing PCs running Microsoft's operating system to bear the dreaded 'blue screen of death'.

Microsoft said that around 8.5 million devices had been affected, which they say represents 'less than one percent of all Windows machines'.

However, the tech giant acknowledged that the impact the update had on the world did 'reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services'.

A cybersecurity update on Friday took down around 8.5 million Windows devices and plunged multiple industries into chaos. (Diego Radames/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Trains got cancelled, hospitals and GP clinics said they were affected by the disruptions, and many airlines had to cancel flights.

This has had the consequence of leaving a lot of people stranded in their holiday destinations with their flights home no longer operating.

Around the world almost 7,000 flights were cancelled on the Friday the CrowdStrike update lit the match which ignited such chaos, including 408 to and from the UK.

More flights were cancelled the following day and each plane not flying is a whole bunch more folks who can't get where they're going with thousands of Brits among that number.

CrowdStrike has since brought in a fix for their error which is being rolled out, but to fully repair what was broken might take some time.

Systems are back up and running now, but not before thousands of flights were cancelled around the world. (Hesham Elsherif/Anadolu via Getty Images)

In the meantime, the aviation industry is getting back on its feet, but it's not been a fun experience for those passengers whose journeys were delayed.

For the Brits stranded abroad there's not much that can be done other than to sit tight and wait for your turn on a plane home, though the airports are understandably more chaotic than usual as a result.

London man Chris Shaw was hit by the disruptions on Friday and had to wait until the following day to get to his destination.

He'd been travelling through Heathrow and said he only got his replacement flight because he 'pushed in and insisted to be dealt with'.

He said there wasn't much information for passengers and many staff members didn't seem to have a concrete idea of what was going on either.

According to transport secretary Louise Haigh, airport IT systems are 'back up and working normally' so it's time to get people back into the skies.