Large-scale outage across the world wrought havoc, rendered IT systems useless

A fix has been deployed for a bug that caused a global IT outage, the CEO of CrowdStrike antivirus firm said Friday.

"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts... The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. This is not a security incident or cyberattack," CEO George Kurtz said in a message on social media platform X.

CrowdStrike had warned customers that its Falcon Sensor threat-monitoring product was causing Microsoft''s Windows operating system to crash. It coincided with disruptions of Microsoft''s Azure cloud services, and the resulting IT outage hobbled businesses across the globe.

A series of technical glitches disrupted services at airlines, banks, media and the London Stock Exchange, an unusually widespread cascade of failures that erupted from the US to Asia after Microsoft Corp. reported an outage across its online services.

McDonald''s Corp., United Airlines Holdings Inc.and the LSE Group were among the major companies to disclose a variety of issues with communications to customer service. They were the more prominent of a plethora of corporations from Japan to India and the US to report glitches with their operations. It was unclear what triggered the issues, which coincided with Microsoft''s disruptions.

Several newspapers reported at least some of the problems stemmed from CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. cybersecurity software. Australia''s AGL Energy Ltd. said in a post on X it was currently experiencing system issues due to a CrowdStrike outage.

The first glitches emerged in the US late on Thursday, blamed on a failure of Microsoft services including Azure and 365. Denver-based Frontier Airlines, a unit of Frontier Group Holdings Inc., grounded flights for over two hours. The airline lifted a nationwide pause on departures and started the process of resuming flights from 11 p.m. New York time.

Some JPMorgan Chase & Co. staffers were unable to log on to the firm''s systems. The bank also told some buy-side clients that it was unable to process certain trades, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing information that isn''t public. A spokesman for New York-based JPMorgan declined to comment.

In Britain, the LSE Group, which operates the London stock exchange, said it''s experiencing a global technical issue preventing news from being published. Work in the medical system reportedly stopped due to the microsoft outage.

Sky News channel''s live broadcast was interrupted due to the technical failure, while Spain announced that all its airports are experiencing technical problems.

Heathrow Airport and Irish no-frills airline Ryanair warned Friday that they faced turbulence over spreading travel chaos emanating from a global IT outage.

Heathrow warned the issue was affecting some systems while Ryanair admitted it faced disruption over a "global third party outage" but both insisted flights remained operational.

Dutch airline KLM announced that it was forced to suspend a large part of its operations due to a global IT outage. "KLM, like other airlines and airports, has also been affected by the global computer outage, making it impossible to handle flights," the company said. "For now, we are forced to suspend most of the operation."

Amsterdam''s Airport Schiphol, one of the busiest airports in Europe, said it was affected by a global IT outage, which also affected Eindhoven airport, the Transavia airline and Dutch hospitals. "There is currently a global computer failure. This disruption also has an impact on flights to and from Schiphol. The impact is now being mapped," an airport statement said.

All airports in Spain are experiencing "disruptions" from an IT outage that has hit several companies worldwide, the airport operator Aena said. "Because of an IT system incident, disruptions are occuring in Aena''s systems and at airport networks in Spain that could cause delays," the operator said on X.

Zurich airport, the largest in Switzerland, said that it had suspended all flight arrivals. "Landings are currently no longer possible," the airport said, though "flights already en route for Zurich are still authorised for landing".

Paris Olympic Games organisers said they are experiencing problems linked with the worldwide outage. "Paris 2024 is aware of global technical issues affecting Microsoft software. These issues are impacting Paris 2024''s IT operations," organisers said.

Japanese users began reporting glitches with services including Microsoft 365 ” the company''s internet-based office software suite ” in the afternoon.

Singapore''s airport said that some airlines had been affected by an IT outage, as widespread technical problems were reported by flight operators around the world. "Due to a global outage affecting IT systems of many organisations, the check-in process for some airlines at Changi Airport is being managed manually," the airport said in a Facebook post.

Five Indian airlines announced disruptions to their booking systems, matching widespread technical problems reported by flight operators around the world. "Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage," IndiGo, the country''s largest airline by market share, said in a post on social media platform X.

National carrier Air India said its systems had been "impacted temporarily due to the current Microsoft outage", causing travel delays.

Budget operator SpiceJet said it had reverted to manual check-ins and boarding after "technical challenges". "Our teams are diligently working with our service provider to resolve these issues promptly," the airline said.

Akasa Air and Vistara also reported outages.

China state media says flights at Beijing airports unaffected.

Hong Kong''s airport said that some airlines had been affected the outage, adding that flight operations had not been disrupted.

A large-scale outage also wrought havoc on IT systems across Australia and New Zealand, causing travel delays, hampering television broadcasts, and forcing supermarket systems offline.

New Zealand said banks and the computer network inside the country''s parliament had also been affected.

Australia national broadcaster ABC said its systems had been crippled by a "major" glitch, derailing some television and radio broadcasts.

Some self-checkout terminals at one of Australia''s largest supermarket chains were rendered useless, displaying blue error messages.

Telecommunications firm Telstra said some of its systems had been disrupted, possibly impacting emergency services that used its network.

US tech giant said it was taking ''mitigation actions'' after service issues.

"Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions," the company said in a post on social platform X.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was looking into the situation, while Crowdstrike representatives weren''t immediately available for comment outside normal business hours, while calls to their main number in Japan went unanswered.

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