Global IT outage affects airlines and businesses worldwide (Updated 14:19)

One of the company’s main products is CrowdStrike Falcon, which its website describes as a platform that “provides real-time attack indicators, hyper-accurate detection, and automated protection” against possible cybersecurity threats.

Dubai Airport resumes normal operations

Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs, announced on Friday that it has resumed normal operations following a global IT outage.

“This morning a global systems outage affected check-in for some airlines at Terminals 1 and 2, we are now back to normal operations,” the airport said in a post on X.

Governments affected: But the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Ministry said on Friday that global technical issues had affected some of its electronic systems, including its authentication services.

“We advise all customers not to conduct any transactions until the issue is resolved,” the ministry said in a post on X.

Crowdstrike CEO says it has worked with customers to resolve global outage and deploy fixes

Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said the IT issue that caused the global outage had been identified and a fix had been deployed.

Kurtz said the cybersecurity company is “actively working with customers impacted by this outage” and said the issue “was not a security incident or a cyberattack.”

Here is his full statement:

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a flaw discovered in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed. We recommend that customers visit the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide full and ongoing updates on our website. We further recommend that organizations ensure they communicate with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our teams are fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

American Airlines has ‘safely resumed’ operations affected by power outage

American Airlines said it has resolved a technical issue that affected its service Friday morning.

“This morning, a supplier technical issue impacted multiple airlines, including American Airlines,” the airline said in a statement to CNN. “As of 5am ET, we have been able to resume operations safely. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience to our customers.”

The NHS said the power outage had caused disruption to services at most GP surgeries.

The NHS said the IT outage had affected most GP consultations in England, but there was no known impact on emergency services.

“The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and issues with GP appointment and patient record systems,” the NHS said on Friday.

The company said it had “put in place long-term measures to deal with this disruption, including the use of paper medical records”.

NHS England is encouraging people to use emergency services “as normal”.

Customer information system of North America’s largest transportation network temporarily offline

A global technology glitch temporarily took some Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) customer information systems offline Friday morning, according to officials.

“Train and bus service are not affected. Please watch for announcements at stations, on trains or buses,” the MTA said in a post.

According to the MTA website, it is the largest transportation network in North America, serving a population of 15.3 million people.

What is CrowdStrike and is it related to this outage?

Founded in 2011, CrowdStrike sells Falcon to large enterprise and government customers, including major global banks, healthcare and energy companies, according to the company.

The company has not yet addressed the ongoing outages that may be related to its software. CNN has reached out to CrowdStrike for comment.

“CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company. It runs a variety of enterprise software for endpoint malware detection. Essentially, it’s a bit like antivirus software, but it’s typically used on enterprise systems rather than personal home computers,” Jeffrey L. Foster, an associate professor at Macquarie University in Australia, told CNN.

Salil Kanhil, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the global IT outage appeared to be caused by a problem with CrowdStrike antivirus software.

“This seems to have affected Windows machines that had the software installed, causing them to crash (blue screen error) and get stuck in a boot loop,” Kanhere said.

“It appears their software updates were rolled out globally without proper testing.”

Australian PM launches national coordination mechanism to deal with technical failure

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a national coordination mechanism had been activated to deal with the ongoing technical failure.

“I understand Australians are concerned about the blackouts that have occurred around the world and affected widespread services,” the Prime Minister said on X, adding that “at this time, there has been no impact on critical infrastructure, government services or 300 services.”

The NCM brings together different government agencies (state and territory) as well as industry and private sector stakeholders to coordinate a large-scale crisis response and was first activated early in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bursa Malaysia suffers outage

Malaysia’s Bursa Malaysia Bhd is experiencing technical glitches.

Bursa Malaysia Bhd also said the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI index feed had “experienced a service disruption” and it was investigating the matter, according to national news agency Bernama.

KTM Berhad, the country’s largest rail operator, said its ticketing system and all customer service channels faced disruption “due to Crowdstrike Microsoft Windows” and it was working to restore services.

Asian airlines hit by tech disruption

Asian carriers AirAsia, Cebu Pacific and Singapore Airlines said on their respective social media channels that they had been hit by the ongoing global technology outage.

AirAsia said in a post on X that “the Microsoft cloud outage has impacted airlines worldwide, with our core reservation and check-in systems impacted.”

Cebu Pacific said it was forced to handle all processes manually due to the outage.

Singapore Airlines said on X that none of its flights were affected but that it was experiencing a technical glitch.

Six Indian airlines and Delhi airport affected by technology outage

As a massive technology outage hits airlines and businesses across the globe, online services of six Indian airlines were hit by issues due to problems with their service providers.

• IndiGo Indian Major airlines said Friday that systems across their networks were affected by ongoing issues with Microsoft Azure, leading to increased wait times at contact centers and airports.
• Indian budget carriers SpiceJet, Air India Express and Akasa Air also experienced technical challenges with their service providers, impacting online services such as booking, check-in and itinerary management.
• Air India, the country’s largest airline, also said on Friday that its digital systems were temporarily affected due to Microsoft’s ongoing outage, resulting in flight delays.
• Delhi-based international airline Vistara said it was facing technical challenges in “all aspects of operations” due to global disruptions with our service providers.
• New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport said on Friday that some services were temporarily affected due to a “global IT issue” and asked passengers to stay in touch with the relevant airlines.

Which airlines and businesses were affected by this global technology outage?

Technology outages around the world have grounded flights, left businesses in IT limbo, and left customers without access to technology services. Here are some of the companies affected so far:

• All flights by United, Delta and American Airlines have been grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration said the grounding was due to a communication problem but did not say how long it would last.
• Allegiant Airlines flights were also grounded. Earlier on Thursday, Allegiant said its website was unavailable due to issues with Microsoft Azure, the tech giant’s cloud software.
• Microsoft said on Friday it was investigating an issue affecting users’ access to various Microsoft 365 apps and services. Earlier on Thursday, the company said on its Azure Status Report website that Azure services were disrupted for some U.S. customers, adding that it had identified the cause and was working on a fix.
• Other global airlines such as Virgin Australia and Qantas, which were also affected by the IT outage, said they were still operating but with some delays.
• Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney airports experienced similar disruptions, although flights were still taking off and landing.
  Australian banks and telecommunications firms including ANZ, Westpac, Visa and Optus were also affected, according to outage tracking site Downdetector.
• Microsoft users in China are seeing a “blue screen” with an error message, commonly known as a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), Microsoft confirmed on Friday.
• The London Stock Exchange said its news service was experiencing a “third-party global technical issue” that was preventing news from being published on its website. It also said other services, including the exchange itself, were operating normally.
  Other businesses affected include Australian supermarket chains, state police, the national broadcaster and the Bank of New Zealand.

Global power outage affects European travel

A massive technology outage worldwide shut down IT systems, causing delays and problems at European airports and affecting other transport connections.

London Gatwick Airport said passengers may experience delays at check-in and through security “due to a global issue with Microsoft”.

Germany’s Berlin Airport said check-in was delayed due to a “technical failure”.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol said a “global system failure” had affected “flights to and from Schiphol” and that the impact was “currently being studied”.

Edinburgh Airport in Scotland said an IT systems failure meant “wait times at the airport were longer than usual”. The airport said its team was ready to help while the problem was fixed.

Ryanair also confirmed disruptions to its network, advising passengers to arrive at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.

Trains in the UK have also experienced problems, with mainline rail operator Thames Rail saying: “Our IT team is actively investigating to determine the root cause of the issue.”

Sky News in the UK is not on air

Sky News, Britain’s main television news channel, was unable to broadcast live on Friday morning.

The station’s executive chairman, David Rhodes, apologised to viewers for the outage and said many news stories were still available online.

Singapore’s famous Changi Airport faces IT outage

Singapore’s famous Changi Airport, frequently ranked as the world’s best airport, is facing an IT outage, according to a post on its Facebook page.

“Due to global disruptions affecting the IT systems of many organisations, the check-in process for some airlines at Changi Airport has now been managed manually,” Changi Airport said.

It is one of many airports currently facing technological disruptions around the world, including in Europe and Australia.

Changi Airport, which handles 95 million passengers a year, topped the Skytrax best airport rankings for eight consecutive years – but fell in the rankings during the pandemic before regaining the crown last year.

Global technology outage disrupts Israeli health care

A “global” computer outage is affecting hospitals and other medical services in Israel, the Health Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The ministry said it was “not a cyber attack but a software glitch that affected ‘servers and computers'”.

The technical glitch caused global chaos, affecting airports and media outlets in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.