IT outage: Microsoft crash linked to CrowdStrike hits firms worldwide

Air traffic control delays in the UK and Europe have soared as a result of the IT issues this morning.

Data by Eurocontrol, which manages European airspace, reported that air traffic flow management delays (ATFM), showed there had been 167,652 minutes of delay so far today — up 91 per cent compared with the same day in 2019, before the pandemic.

The latest data shows that globally about 1,390 flights have been cancelled with the number growing by the hour.

Some airports have reverted to using whiteboards to display departure information and handing out handwritten boarding cards. Staff working at Stansted said much of the check-in work was being carried out manually.

The Port of Rotterdam in Holland, the largest seaport in Europe, says its activities were impacted by the CrowdStrike outage.

“We are now making an inventory of the reports,” a spokesman told Dutch media. “We know it’s happening.”

There are approximately 3,000 companies in the port area, including those that work in container terminals.

KLM, a Dutch airline, has said handling flights is “impossible” and has largely suspended operations amid the ongoing global computer outage.

“We realise that this is very inconvenient for our customers and staff, particularly in the midst of the summer holiday season.

“We’re working hard to resolve the problem. Until then, we will have to largely suspend operations.”

Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, said the government was working “at pace with industry” to address IT issues causing train and air disruption.

Shares in the cybersecurity group CrowdStrike were down about 20 per cent in pre-market trading on Wall Street on Friday.

The major IT outage is believed to have resulted from “an interaction between the CrowdStrike antivirus” software and the Microsoft Windows operating system, according to Oleg Gorokhovsky, founder of the Ukrainian online bank Monobank.

Microsoft shares were down about 3 per cent in pre-market trading.

CBBC is being broadcast again after being down for most of the morning.

A message read: “Sorry! Something’s gone wrong. While we fix it, please go to BBC iPlayer.”

The BBC’s children’s channel came back online at about 10.30am.

Chris Dimitriadis, chief global strategy officer at ISACA, a professional IT association, called the incident a “digital pandemic”.

He said: “When one service provider in the digital supply chain is affected, the whole chain can break, causing large-scale outages. This incident is a clear example of what could be termed a digital pandemic, a single point of failure impacting millions of lives globally.”

He added: “The outage is a result of an increasingly complex and interconnected digital world, and this failing is exactly why cyber resilience is key … Although we are still waiting for more details on the incident, what we do know is the cost of it will be felt for months.”

However, Ian Golding, digital expert at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, said there would be a silver lining: “Whatever the weak links in the chain that are discovered from today’s outage, the organisations affected will become better prepared with their plan B for a scenario like this in the future.”

Some of Britain’s biggest retailers have been hit by the tech meltdown, with customers in supermarkets, such as Morrisons and Co-op, experiencing problems paying for goods.

At some Morrisons stores, contactless payments have stopped working, with shoppers being asked to pay using cash or chip and pin.

Some Co-op stores have been facing the same problems, with signs up urging shoppers to pay with cash. The company’s Twitter account said: “We are experiencing issues with our card payments. This is affecting many other retailers and we are working with our card payment provider to resolve this as soon as possible.”

There have also been unconfirmed reports of problems at Sainsbury’s and Waitrose although Tesco appears to have been unaffected.

The pub chain Wetherspoons has also been hit with its app, which can be used to make orders and payments, not working this morning.

The organisers of the Paris Olympics said they were experiencing problems linked to the global IT outage.

One week before the Games’s opening ceremony takes place, organisers faced problems with the accreditation system, with some people unable to pick up badges, a source at the organising committee said.

“Paris 2024’s technical teams have been fully mobilised to mitigate the impacts of these issues and we have activated contingency plans in order to continue operations,” the organisers added.

EasyJet has advised customers travelling from Spain to arrive three hours before their flight due to the IT outage.

“EasyJet’s IT systems have not been directly affected by the Microsoft systems issues this morning. However, we are aware that some airports’ systems have been impacted across Europe,” said a spokeswoman for the UK’s biggest airline by passenger numbers.

“This has led to some disruption to flights this morning and we expect some further potential impact to flights today.

“Customers should expect longer than usual airport queues and we are advising customers travelling from Spanish airports to arrive three hours before their flight.”

Whitehall crisis officials are co-ordinating the response to the major IT outage, Pat McFadden has said

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster wrote on Twitter: “Many people are being affected by today’s IT outages impacting services across the country and globally. Ministers are working with their sectors and respective industries on the issue.

“I am in close contact with teams co-ordinating our response through the [Cobra] response system.”

Cobra is the committee tasked with handling matters of national emergency or major disruption.

Disruption on the railways is expected until the end of the day, with short-notice cancellations likely. The outage is also impacting real-time information screens and services at stations.

The full list of affected train operators, as of 10.30am, is:

• Avanti West Coast
• c2c
• Gatwick Express
• Great Northern
• Great Western Railway
• Hull Trains
• London Northwestern Railway
• Lumo
• Merseyrail
• Northern
• Southern
• Thameslink
• Transport for Wales
• TransPennine Express
• West Midlands Railway

A spokesman for Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said: “We are sorry for any customers experiencing disruption to their journeys today; staff are working hard to resolve the issues as soon as possible.

“Most trains are still running across the country and rail staff will be able to provide the latest information to customers in person. You can also visit the National Rail Enquiries website for the latest updates.”

Network Rail said its “essential train control, communication and running systems” were unaffected.

The IT outage was not caused by a security incident or cyberattack and a fix has been deployed, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz has said.

The Ukrainian cyber defence force said the country’s organisations had resumed their work “fully or partially”.

The State Special Communications Service of Ukraine (SSSCIP) issued advice on how to work around the IT outage.

“SSSCIP specialists advise using instructions provided by CrowdStrike for a hotfix,” it said.

Salisbury District Hospital has confirmed it has been affected by the IT outage.

In a statement Microsoft said a resolution for Windows devices would be “forthcoming”.

It said: “We are aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.”

More than 1,000 flights have been cancelled globally already because of the IT outage.

Cirium, the aviation analytics company, said that the figure was expected to rise significantly as the day went on. The knock-on effect of today’s disruption is likely to last into the weekend.

Between Friday and Sunday, 9,075 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports — equating to more than 1.6 million seats.

Passengers are reporting huge queues at airports up and down the country although no UK airlines have grounded flights

A London hospital has reportedly been affected by the IT outage, with computers down.

Many computers at Queen’s Hospital in Romford are not working and staff are resorting to using paper forms, according to a source. Some scans are also reportedly affected.

The hospital has been approached for comment.

The Microsoft IT software issue is causing delays and cancellations of flights and train services.

Read our travel team’s guide to which airlines and airports are affected by the outage.

The majority of GP practices are affected by an issue with the appointment and patient record system, according to NHS England.

Paper patient records, handwritten prescriptions and phone systems are being used. People should only contact their GP if it is urgent.

There is no known impact on emergency services and patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise.

An NHS spokesman said: “The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.

“The NHS has long-standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP.”

France’s cybersecurity agency said there was no evidence the global IT outage had been caused by a cyberattack.

“The teams are fully mobilised to identify and support the affected entities in France and to understand … the origin of this outage,” the national cybersecurity agency (ANSSI) said.

Sky News is back broadcasting live on TV after the outage.

After welcoming viewers back to the channel, the morning anchor reported on the news saying: “A major global IT outage is hitting businesses worldwide, including here at Sky News.”

The presenters referred to printed notes during the report as the broadcaster got back on its feet.

Zurich airport has suspended all flight arrivals because of the IT outage.

“Landings are currently no longer possible,” the largest airport in Switzerland said.

“Flights already en route for Zurich are still authorised for landing,” the statement added.

The British government is not treating the global IT outage that has affected companies and services around the world as a malicious act, a security source said.

The source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, that security experts were not treating it as a cyber-related security issue.

Air France said Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris were not facing IT-related disruption.

The flag-carrier said, however, that it was experiencing tech issues on several of its services.

An Air France spokesman said flights already in the air were not affected and its website and app were working normally.

The National Pharmacy Association confirmed that the tech problems were disrupting prescriptions.

A spokesman said: “We’re aware that due to global IT outages services in community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today.

“We urge patients to be patient whilst visiting their pharmacy. We’re urgently raising this issue with the NHS England.”

Two hospitals in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel have cancelled elective operations scheduled for Friday.

Patient care and emergency services are being maintained, the University Clinic of Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH) added in a statement.

The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has been affected by the global technical issues which have disrupted its market news service.

LSEG said it was unable to publish company updates to markets through its regulatory news service due to the IT outage.

The FTSE 100, London’s blue-chip index, opened at 8.20am. The market normally opens for trading at 8am. Shares in LSEG fell 0.9 per cent in early morning trading.

The Lib Dems have urged the government to call a Cobra meeting to address the fallout of the IT outage.

The party’s Cabinet Office spokeswoman, Christine Jardine, said getting critical infrastructure up and running again “must be priority number one”.

She added: “The government must call an urgent Cobra meeting to address the chaos being caused by these IT outages across the country. The public needs to be reassured that the disruption to their travel or their desperately needed GP appointments will be minimised.

“The National Cyber Security Centre should also be working with small businesses and other organisations to help them deal with the outage.”

Jardine said that the issue “lays bare the need to improve our digital infrastructure and truly modernise our economy in order to prevent the incidents from happening again”.

Crowdstrike, headquartered in Austin, Texas, works to stop internet breaches for the world’s biggest companies. Shares in the firm, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, have declined by 12 per cent in pre-market trading.

The American cybersecurity business was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovitch and Gregg Marston.

It is reported that an update was sent out on Friday morning which is suspected to have caused the crash.

Shareholders in CrowdStrike include the investment managers Jennison Associates and Geode Capital Management. Google’s owner Alphabet also owns a stake in the company.

Fortunately, Crowdstrike has now issued a workaround for the problem.

The main issue for IT departments will be trying to get to all those devices on the network somehow, which will differ from company to company.

However, for airports, trains and hospitals, the damage will have already been done.

If you were really wondering what the workaround is:

1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or WRE
2. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
3. Locate and delete file matching “C-00000291*.sys”
4. Boot normally.

A GP practice in Oxfordshire has said patients with “routine concerns” should wait until next week.

In a post on Twitter, Windrush Medical Practice in Witney, said it was operating as normal for urgent inquiries.

National Rail Enquiries, has issued a fresh statement on the impact on the railways.

It said: “There are currently widespread IT issues across the entire network. IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.”

Customer travelling with Great Northern, Thameslink, Southern and Gatwick Express are being allowed to use their tickets on various other routes at no extra costs.

These include: South Western Railway between Dorking and London Waterloo; Southeastern on all services between London and Kent; London Underground across all zones; London buses, including towards Sevenoaks; LNER between London Kings Cross and Peterborough/Stevenage; and Docklands Light Railway across all routes.

A few hours ago, a Reddit forum user started a thread, complaining of a “BSOD” (blue screen of death) error following a CrowdStrike update.

The innocuous post on the popular site — “Is anyone being affected currently by a BSOD outage?” —has now been labelled “Troubleshooting megathread”, with users around the world sharing their experiences, showing the extent of the tech outage’s impact.

“We just had 17 divisions go down at the same time!” one wrote. “It’s really surreal going from ‘my single lone computer is having issues’ to ‘oh so apparently the entire world has stopped working’,” another remarked.

Other messages include “Failing here in Australia too. Our entire company is offline”, “Malaysia here, 70 per cent of our laptops are down and stuck in boot, HQ from Japan ordered a company-wide shutdown” and “Major issues here, US-NY my team is dropping like flies on our work PCs as well”.

The computer crash is disrupting the system of Spain’s airport operator, Aena, and is already causing delays at Barcelona’s El Prat airport and incidents that could affect the entire network.

Aena reported on Twitter/X that “alterations are occurring in Aena’s systems and in the airports of the Spanish network, which could cause delays”.

At 9am several flights departing from Barcelona were delayed. The main problems are affecting check-in and information points. Aena says it is working to solve the problems “as soon as possible” and that operations are being carried out using a manual system.

The outage is causing problems for companies outside the airline industry — in finance, media and other industries. The websites of the banks BBVA and Unicaja, as well as the national Correos postal service have reported problems.

Hong Kong’s airport said some airlines had been affected by the widespread technical problems but that flights had not been disrupted.

“A Microsoft outage that has disrupted the service of airlines worldwide is affecting some of the airlines at Hong Kong International Airport,” the Hong Kong Airport Authority said in a statement.

The above image is a screengrab from a website called VirusTotal, where people upload problem files.

It was uploaded last night, according to Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, who said: “It was recognised very early that there was a problem with this file which is the monitoring agent that gets downloaded to every PC.

“The file is quite a ‘privileged’ piece of software so it can get deep into the operating system, which is why it’s caused such havoc.”

Hundreds of GP practices have been affected by the IT problems. This is causing chaos as patients try to book appointments during the 8am rush, with some appointments cancelled and doctors urging patients to try going to a pharmacy instead.

The computer system EMIS, which is used nationally by GP surgeries, has gone down.

Solihull Healthcare Partnership in the West Midlands said: “Unfortunately there is a national issue with EMIS Web — our clinical computer system.

“This will affect our ability to book/consult with patients this morning. We will update patients when we can. We apologise for the disruption.”

Wilmslow Health Centre in Cheshire wrote on Twitter: “All practices in the UK using the NHS commissioned GP computer system EMIS are currently without access to their IT systems. This is beyond the control of GP surgeries. Please bear with us until we have our IT systems back online.”

Bristol Water said it was experiencing company-wide IT issues but the billing department remained operational.

All Spanish airports are experiencing “disruptions” from the outage, 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 posted on Twitter/X.

Aena manages 46 airports in Spain, 32 in America and one in the UK.

Emergency service call lines are reportedly out of commission in multiple states across the US.

Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio have all reported 911 phone lines being down.

In Indiana police urged residents in emergencies to text 911 after a statewide issue caused the emergency number and administrative phone lines to be down overnight.

Long queues are building at many UK airports. Passengers have reported disruption at Gatwick, Luton, Edinburgh and Manchester, with delays checking in and getting through security.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, which is urging passengers to arrive at airports at least three hours before departure, added that passengers who have been unable to check in at home can do so at the airport.

Three Indian airlines announced disruptions to their booking systems mirroring the widespread technical problems reported by flight operators worldwide.

“Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage,” the budget carrier IndiGo said in a post on Twitter/X, with airlines Akasa Air and SpiceJet also reporting technical issues.

The Microsoft outage could not have come at a worse time for holidaymakers.

Today is set to be the busiest day for flight departures since 2019 as the school summer holidays get under way.

While there are no safety implications, passengers are struggling to check in, departure boards have gone blank and baggage handling systems are down.

For airlines and airports this would be their worst nightmare at the best of times — let alone at the start of the school holidays.

Passengers will be frantically trying to find out what the impact is at their airport. Queues are already building at many airport, and it was already going to be tough today. It’s now set to be an awful lot tougher.

NHS booking services are also down, with GP practices unable to access medical records or book appointments.

A national issue with EMIS Web, a clinical computer system, means many surgeries are unable to access patient records, book appointments, prescribe medication or provide information.

The Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, said: “This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority.”

Some services, such as Moatfield Surgery in East Grinstead, have said they are running an emergency-only service today due to the issue.

At the heart of the worldwide outage is a piece of software that is supposed to stop networks going down, rather than breaking them itself. Falcon is a software product from the US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that detects threats on networked computers.

It sits on a company’s servers but also on all the computers on that network, looking for things that look suspicious and reporting back. Overnight CrowdStrike updated that piece of software, and then the trouble started.

Beginning in Australia and rolling across the world, Windows computers using Falcon couldn’t cope with the update and started shutting down, giving the so-called “blue screen of death”. The problem now is that recovering those machines centrally will be difficult so this may take time to resolve.

One leading cybersecurity expert called the incident “unforgivable”.

Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said: “The big question is, how the hell did that get through testing? How did it get launched onto the world?

“That’s just unforgivable … that something as embedded as that, which can cause such problems … it can’t have been thoroughly tested before it was launched or they would have seen it.”

London Stansted Airport has said “flights are still operating as normal” but that some airline check-in services are being done manually as a result of the IT outage.

A spokesman said: “Some retail payment machine services have been impacted, and some airline check-in services reverted to being done manually, but our main operational systems are unaffected and flights are still operating as normal.”

Ryanair is experiencing disruption across its network due to “a global 3rd party IT outage which is out of our control”.

Passengers are being advised to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has also been affected. “The outage has an impact on flights flying from and to Schiphol,” a spokesman said, adding that it was not yet clear how many flights were affected.

There is widespread transport disruption this morning as a result of the Microsoft outage. Ryanair, Manchester Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Transpennine trains as well as Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern are reporting issues and possible disruption.

Airline passengers are being warned to check before they travel as the main summer holiday period begins.

Cirium, the Aviation analytics company, said today was set to be the busiest day for UK flights since 2019, with more than 3,214 departures — an average of one flight taking off every 27 seconds.

Edinburgh Airport said “waiting times are longer than usual” at its terminals because of the problems.

CrowdStrike is a major US cybersecurity company that provides services for some of the biggest companies in the world.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it employs more than 8,000 people. This outage will be a major blow to its reputation, which has been built on the back of the Falcon software that uses AI to detect threats on the computers of large networks.

It investigated the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the 2016 Democratic National Committee cyberattacks. Its findings have often led to high-profile legal actions, including the indictment of Chinese military hackers by the US Department of Justice in 2014.

The London Stock Exchange is experiencing a “global technical issue” preventing it from publishing news.

A notice on its website says the RNS news service is “currently experiencing a 3rd party global technical issue, preventing news from being published”.

Other services across the group continue to operate as normal, the notice states.

“Technical teams are working to restore the service,” it adds.

Microsoft has said its services are seeing “improvements” as it takes “mitigation actions”.

The tech company began updating customers shortly after midnight UK time, when it said it was investigating an issue “impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services”.

The latest update shortly after 7am said: “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.”

In Sydney all New South Wales government departments including the police and fire and rescue have been affected.

Customers have reported ATM server issues at the supermarket chain Woolworths and other retailers.

Drivers are stuck at fuel pumps unable to pay for their petrol.

Qantas flight check-ins have reportedly been affected. Virgin Australia said the outage was preventing all planes from coming and going at Sydney Airport.

Australia’s national broadcaster, major banks, telecoms firms and the national airline, Qantas, were all affected late on Friday as US computer outages spread.

The crowd-sourced website Downdetector has listed the National Australia Bank, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the nation’s biggest telecoms company, Telstra, and many smaller banks as suffering outages.

Many large media organisations, including Nine and its mastheads, the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers are also affected with some ABC radio stations off air.

Berlin airport suspended flights this morning.

According to Reuters, air traffic at the German capital’s airport was halted until 8am GMT.

The airport previously said that due to a technical fault there would be delays at check-in.

In the US, several major airlines have grounded flights.

American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines have issued “ground stops” because of “communication issues”.

The messages were issued less than an hour after Microsoft resolved its cloud services outage that affected several low-cost carriers overnight.

It was not immediately clear whether the call to stop flights taking off was related to the earlier outage.

Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern services have been impacted, with cancellations possible on their train services.

Govia Thameslink Railway said it was experiencing “widespread IT issues” across their entire network.

The company said it was unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, which could cause short-notice cancellations, particularly on Thameslink and Great Northern services.

Its real-time customer information platforms are also affected. A spokesman said: “Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem. We will provide additional updates when we can. In the meantime, please regularly check your journey before you travel.”

Sky News has not been able to broadcast live this morning.

The news is not being broadcast on the channel at present, with viewers able to see an error message, which reads: “We apologise for the interruption to this broadcast. We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly.”

The broadcaster’s executive chairman, David Rhodes, apologise in a post on Twitter/X.