Worldwide major airlines, media outlets, corporations, and law enforcement agencies are currently experiencing a severe IT outage stemming from an issue with Microsoft cloud computing services that occurred early on Friday.
Numerous countries have grounded flights, and as a result of the outage affecting Windows PCs, numerous countries saw the shutdown of retailers and broadcasters.
Due to communication problems, major airlines United Airlines, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines all announced ground halt on Friday morning. Representative Eric Swalwell, a member of the House subcommittee on cybersecurity, stated that Delta had issued a “global ground stop.”
Just before 2:20 a.m. (ET), Alaska State Troopers posted an update on Facebook stating that a countrywide technology-related outage was the reason why 911 and non-emergency phone numbers were down throughout the state.
In Europe, Aena, which oversees 46 airports in Spain, reported that “an incident in the computer system” could create delays, and Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport announced that passenger check-ins will be delayed “due to a technical fault.” One of Australia’s busiest airports, Sydney Airport, announced delays.
Although its systems were unaffected prior to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games next week, the Paris airport authority stated in a statement that “Airlines’ operations at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports are impacted by this situation, which causes delays at check-in, delays, and temporary suspension of some flights,” as reported by The Associated Press.
In the UK, train operators similarly attributed Friday morning’s cancellations on IT problems, while the London Stock Exchange attributed its regulatory news service’s inability to post any new items to a “3rd party global technical issue.”
“The NHS is aware of a problem with a patient record and appointment system for general practitioners, as well as a worldwide IT outage,” the nation’s National Health Service stated on X. The statement also mentioned that the emergency phone line for the health system was still available. A few pharmacies in Britain are also impacted.
Local media reports indicate that at least fifteen major hospitals in Israel have also been impacted. But now, the majority of medical facilities have either gone back to their previous manual processes or resumed regular operations. The nation’s ambulance service’s emergency line is also impacted.
Customers claimed that when they tried to start their computers, a blue screen appeared. Numerous websites and supermarket self-service checkouts appear to have been severely disrupted by the issue.
Although Microsoft said that the issue with its Azure Service and Microsoft 365 apps—which include tools like the Teams videoconferencing app—was resolved early on Friday, businesses in the US and Europe continued to report issues. “A small subset of services is still experiencing residual impact,” the company stated.
The disruptions were caused by an upgrade, according to cybersecurity outfit CrowdStrike, which told NBC.
George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, stated in a post on X that a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” was the cause of the failures. He went on to say that “the issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed” and that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack.”
News organizations including NBC News have been impacted by the problem. The British partner broadcaster of NBC News, Sky News, was momentarily unable to provide live news.
“Sky News is presently apologizing to viewers for any inconvenience caused by our inability to show live TV this morning. David Rhodes, the executive chairman of Sky News, stated on X that “we are working hard to restore all services, and a large portion of our news report is still available online.”
Australian broadcasters also reported issues. Michelle McGuinness, the nation’s national coordinator for cyber security, stated on X that there was no indication that the problem was the consequence of a cyberattack.