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A worldwide Windows glitch has taken much of the world’s infrastructure offline.
Flights were grounded, and hospitals across the world have reported a variety of problems. TV channels have been taken off air. Everything from banks and payment companies to airlines and train companies said that they would see delays and technical issues.
Eerie scenes played out in New York as giant screens in the world-famous Times Square went dark, and across the US complications with local hospitals and law enforcement services were reported.
The problem is related to a global update sent out by CrowdStrike, a cyber security company that makes a product that aims to keep computers safe.
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz later issued a statement reassuring customers that the outage was not “a security incident or cyber attack.”
“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” Kurtz said, in a statement. “We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.”
According to the aviation analysts at Cirium, one in 25 flights globally had been cancelled on Friday.
Read our full report on the outages here
You can read our full report on the outages here.
Andrew Griffin19 July 2024 09:38
Long queues for Ryanair at Stansted
Here at Stansted Airport there are large crowds in the departures hall, far greater than we’d expect even for such a busy travel day. The vast majority appear to be at Ryanair where there are long queues for check-in, snaking right through the airport. Ryanair has been reporting problems with online check-in and asking passengers to check-in at the airport if needed, suggesting that they arrive at Stansted three hours before their flight. Security lines are long but moving efficiently; time through security is under 30 mins
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 23:00
Timelapse: How global Microsoft IT outage grounded flights across US
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 22:35
Biden in contact with Crowdstrike over ongoing outage situation
President Joe Biden is receiving regular updates on the global outages, according to a senior Administration official.
“President Biden will continue to receive updates on the CrowdStrike global tech outage that disrupted operations across multiple industries on Friday,” per the official.
“The White House is in regular contact with CrowdStrike’s executive leadership and tracking progress on remediating affected systems. We have offered US government support.
“Our understanding is that this is not a cyber attack, but rather a faulty technical update.The White House has been convening agencies to assess impacts to the US government’s operations and entities around the country.
“At this time, our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains, and 911 centers are able to receive and process calls.
“We are assessing impact to local hospitals, surface transportation systems, and law enforcement closely and will provide further updates as we learn more. We stand ready to provide assistance as needed.”
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 22:10
Crowdstrike ‘understands gravity’ of situation
In a statement issued on Friday morning Crowdstrike apoligized to all those affected by the outage, saying it understood “the gravity of the situation”.
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on,” the statement read.
“We assure our customers that CrowdStrike is operating normally and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. If your systems are operating normally, there is no impact to their protection if the Falcon Sensor is installed.”
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 21:45
Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring company Catchpoint CEO, said that the global outage on Friday was a “stark reminder” of the potential infallibilty of the modern digital age.
“The scale of today’s global IT outage is unparalleled in recent history,” Daoudi said, in a statement shared with The Independent.
“It serves as a stark reminder that our entire world is powered by digital experiences and that the internet is neither magically infallible nor inherently resilient. This is a reminder you need to manage and control change: Don’t blindly update software or change configuration.
“At any moment, even the smallest oversight or piece of unpreparedness can bring systems—and consequently businesses—down.”
Daoudi continued: “Preparation and visibility are key, not just to prevent such outages but to mitigate the vast financial risks they pose.
“The fallout from today’s event will likely be measured not just in the disruption of services but in exponential financial losses worldwide, potentially amounting to millions or even billions in lost revenue.
“It highlights a critical vulnerability: our increasing dependency on digital infrastructure can translate into staggering costs when that infrastructure fails. Kudos to all the IT professionals and teams are working tirelessly to resolve this issue and restore services.”
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 21:20
Judicial system operations affected in California
Court and jail operations were affected by the global outage in the state of California.
Los Angeles County Superior Court exprienced “significant system-wide connectivity issues” wile further south in San Diego County inmate bookings were limited.
“The Court is experiencing significant system-wide connectivity issues that are impacting the Court’s ability to conduct business,” the Los Angeles Superior Court said in an email, adding hearings with parties expecting to appear remotely will be rescheduled.
In San Diego, jail bookings were limited for a few hours while department officials employed back up systems.
“We were able to resolve the challenges relatively quickly, thanks to our exceptional team of professionals in our Sheriff’s Data Services and Detentions Processing Divisions,” the San Diego County Sheriff said, per CNN.
“These men and women worked closely with our Sheriff’s Communications Center, as well as our patrol and detentions deputies, to ensure essential services were not interrupted.”
Elsewhere in California, “all 911, public safety communications and critical infrastructure is functioning as expected,” the state Office of Emergency Services said in a social media post.
“At this time, there are no reports of impacts to life-safety public services in California,” the governor’s office said.
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 21:00
In pictures: Chaos at North American airports
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 20:40
Watch: CrowdStrike CEO breaks silence after global outage
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 20:20
US west coast affected by outage
The effects of the outage have been felt across the US with hospitals and transport links felt on the east coast, and a state of emergency declared in the west coast state of Oregon.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency declaration Friday morning for the city due to the ongoing IT outage, according to a news release.
“The issue is causing computer outages and affecting multiple systems globally, impacting City servers in the City Data Centers as well as employee computers, with impacts to VPN connection and Single Sign On (SSO) to cloud services,” according to a release put out by the mayor’s office.
“City services that rely on Microsoft Operating Systems using Crowdstrike Endpoint Protection, including certain essential City service providers, are impacted by the problem including emergency communications.”
Mike Bedigan19 July 2024 20:00
