A major computer outage caused by a third-party software update affecting Microsoft Windows systems caused global disruptions to transportation, financial networks and healthcare facilities on Friday. Photo by Tolga Bozoglu/EPA-EFE
July 19 (UPI) — Many emergency services hit by the global IT outage began coming back online Friday afternoon, while the rest of the world was still reeling from the impact of the outage on air travel, television and public infrastructure.
911 emergency services have been affected in several US states, including Alaska, where a major call centre outage forced state police to provide alternative emergency numbers until services were restored online hours later.
But at 4:23 a.m. local time, Alaska State Troopers official Facebook account provided an update that emergency services were back up and running.
New Hampshire and Plano, Texas, were among other States and communities affected by the problem, but reported later in the afternoon that 911 services had resumed.
The outages appear to have been caused by an update to CrowdStrike cybersecurity software, with United Airlines saying it was working with the Texas-based vendor to resolve a “technical issue that is affecting multiple carriers.”
“A third-party software outage is affecting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” the Chicago-based carrier told the BBC.
“While we work to restore these systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already in the air are continuing on to their destinations.”
CrowdStrike, which confirmed that the issue was the result of a flaw in a content update for Windows hosts for which it had released a patch, stressed that it was not a security incident or cyberattack, but warned its customers to be wary of fake sites or scammers pretending to represent the company.
“We are directing customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide comprehensive and ongoing updates on our website,” said CEO George Kurtz.
“We also recommend that organizations ensure they communicate with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels.
Kurtz stressed that there was no malicious intent behind the outages.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he said on X.
The Federal Communications Commission announced Friday morning that it had begun investigating the issue.
“We are aware of reports of a system outage resulting in service disruptions, including 911. We are working closely with other federal agencies to provide assistance and determine the extent of these service disruptions,” the FCC said. said X on Friday morning.
The problem has grounded flights and disrupted rail services, logistics, hospitals, banks and stock exchanges. Some television channels have been forced to go off the air, unable to broadcast.
In addition to United, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines Also All flights worldwide have been suspendedthe united states Federal Aviation Administration Europe's largest airline, Ryanair, said it had been hit hard by a “third-party IT outage entirely outside our control”, while long queues formed at airports in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Manchester and all four London airports.
Passengers arriving at airports were met with blank screens displaying real-time flight information.
German airlines Lufthansa and Eurowings as well as SAS, the national airline of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, reported problems with their online booking or check-in systems, while Dutch airline KLM said: had “largely suspended its operations” because flight management had become “impossible”.
Zurich Airport said the flights were not allowed to land.
In Asia, Delhi airport was forced to switch to manual check-in and use whiteboards to display flight information, while Tokyo's Narita airport reported that Qantas and at least four regional carriers were experiencing system problems.
Microsoft said it is “aware of an issue affecting Windows devices” due to an update from a third-party software platform.
It said it was working to mitigate the issues in a series of updates. posted on X The company announced overnight that it was also working to “redirect impacted traffic to alternative, healthy systems to mitigate the impact more quickly.”
In an update Friday afternoon, Microsoft said the underlying causes have been fixed and all previously impacted Microsoft 365 apps and services have been recovered.
In Britain, 15 rail companies were affected, as well as Sky TV and the BBC. Sky was out of service for several hours, the London Stock Exchange's regulatory announcements and research service was down, while the National Health Service's primary care was severely affected.
NHS England said the outage was causing disruption in the majority of the country's 6,300 GP surgeries, but was not aware of any known impact on 999 emergency services.
Even after British agencies and businesses began to come online again, the problem has led to a backlog of delayed and cancelled appointments and other issues that may not be resolved for days.
In Australia, airports in Sydney and Melbourne reported problems and Virgin Australia was forced to cancel flights.
A meeting of emergency agencies was underway in Canberra, attended by representatives from major grocery and retail chains, major telecommunications and internet service providers, the banking and financial sector, airlines, utilities, transport and logistics providers, and state and territory governments.
