IT outage affects millions around the globe
CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and Airports: Computer Outages in Australia and the Middle East from a Black Hole Alert on the Falcon Sensor Platform
An X user posted a screenshot of an alert from the company Crowdstrike that said the company was aware of “reports of crashes on Windows hosts” related to its Falcon Sensor platform. The alert was posted but could not be verified. Crowdstrike didn’t respond to a request for comment.
News outlets in Australia — including the ABC and Sky News — were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels, and reported sudden shutdowns of Windows-based computers. Some news anchormen broadcast live from dark offices with computers showing blue screens of death.
Australian outages reported on the site included banks and airlines, as well as internet and phone providers.
In Germany, Berlin Airport said Friday morning that “due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in.” It said that flights were not allowed to take off until 10 a.m.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said on its website that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The outage came on one of the busiest days of the year for the airport, at the start of many people’s summer vacations.
At Australian airports, lines grew and many passengers were stuck as online check-in services and Self Service booths were disabled. Passengers in Melbourne queued for more than an hour to check in.
“We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control,’’ Ryanair said. “We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”
The computer issues were disrupting the flights, railways, and television stations in the United Kingdom. The budget airline Ryanair, train operators TransPennine Express and Govia Thameslink Railway, as well as broadcaster Sky News are among those affected.
Microsoft indicated that it was working on redirecting the impacted traffic to alternate systems and that they were watching a positive trend in service availability.
The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.
The technology company said it was fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft apps and services, but that did not stop the disruptions.
Employees of airlines, banks, hospitals and other businesses wereDisruptions caused by Friday’s global tech outage kept happening into Saturday, as employees of airlines, banks, hospitals and other businesses were trying to catch up from the large number of Windows devices that were affected.
Airlines were playing the biggest catchup game because of the thousands of flights that had been canceled on Friday. Nearly 1,500 flights were canceled across the US as of Saturday afternoon, and 4,600 were delayed.
The entire trip is ruined, because of the power outage, according to an American woman who was stuck in London.
She said she was thankful for the customer service representatives who helped reassure her and rebook her flight, as she said, “We are so reliant on technology.”
CrowdStrike: Responding to a Boston-based Hospital Outage via a Surveillance of a Non-Urgent Surgery
Massachusetts General Brigham, a Boston-based hospital, said on Saturday it would be back to normal operations on Saturday after canceling all non- urgent surgeries on Friday because of the outage.
In a statement, the hospital told NPR that their response teams were continuing to address the many downstream impacts from the CrowdStrike failure.
In a statement, the Austin-based CrowdStrike said it was “actively working with customers” whose screens were impacted by the incident, confirming it was not a cyberattack.
David Weston, Microsoft’s vice president of enterprise and OS security, said in a post that the broad economic and societal impacts were a result of the use of CrowdStrike.
