Mass IT outage hits airports, businesses and broadcasters around the world

Mass IT outage hits airports, businesses and broadcasters around the world

Patrick Smith

Major airlines, media organizations, businesses and police forces around the world are currently being affected by a massive information technology glitch caused by a problem with Microsoft cloud computing services early Friday. 

Flights have been grounded in several countries and stores and broadcasters in several countries went offline as the outage affected Windows PCs. 

Major carriers, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, all issued ground stops Friday morning citing communications issues. Delta has ordered a “global ground stop,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, a member of the House subcommittee on cybersecurity.

Alaska State Troopers said in an update on Facebook just before 2:20 a.m. (ET) that 911 and non-emergency phone numbers across the state were not working “due to a nationwide technology-related outage.”

In Europe, Berlin’s Brandenburg Airport said there would be delays to passenger check-ins “because of a technical fault,” and Aena, which manages 46 airports in Spain, said “an incident in the computer system” could cause delays. Sydney Airport, one of Australia’s largest, said there would be delays.

Paris' airport authority said in a statement that while its systems were not affected ahead of next week's Olympic Games opening ceremony, "this situation has an impact on the operations of airlines at Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly airports: delays in check-in, delays and temporary suspension of some flights," according to The Associated Press.

Train operators in the United Kingdom also blamed IT outages for cancellations Friday morning and the London Stock Exchange blamed a “3rd party global technical issue” for stopping its regulatory news service posting any new items. 

The country’s National Health Service posted on X that “the NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with a [general practitioner] appointment and patient record system.” The statement added that the health system’s emergency phone service was still operating. Some British pharmacies are also affected.

In Israel, too, at least 15 major hospitals have been affected, according to local media. However, most medical centers have now either returned to normal operations or reverted to manual operations. The emergency line of the country’s ambulance service is also affected.

Users reported seeing a blue screen when attempting to start their computers. The glitch appears to have caused havoc for supermarket self-service checkouts and countless websites.

Microsoft said the problem with its Azure Service and Microsoft 365 apps, including services such as the videoconferencing app Teams, was fixed early Friday, but companies across the U.S. and Europe were still reporting problems. The company said “a small subset of services is still experiencing residual impact.”

An update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to the outages, the company told NBC.

In a post on X, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said that the outages were due to a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” He added that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack” and that “the issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

The glitch has affected news outlets, including NBC News. Sky News, NBC News' British partner broadcaster, was temporarily unable to air live news.

Widespread technology outage disrupts flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world

CHARLOTTE GRAHAM-McLAY and ELAINE KURTENBACH

 A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued — and escalated.

Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor's offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed, but Games organizers said disruptions were limited and didn't affect ticketing or the torch relay.

DownDectector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we’ve come to rely on at critical times are not going to be available. Hospitals, for example, will struggle to sort out appointments and those who need care may not get it.

“There are going to be deaths because of this. It’s inevitable,’’ Bore said. “We’ve got so many systems tied up with this.”

Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment.