Microsoft IT outage live: Millions of devices hit by CrowdStrike failure

NHS England has warned of “continued disruption” to GP services into next week from the global IT outage.

A flawed update rolled out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems.

A fix was deployed for a bug in the update, which affected Microsoft Windows PCs, on Friday, as CrowdStrike’s chief executive said it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.

Across England, GP surgeries reported being unable to book appointments or access patient records on Friday as their EMIS appointment and patient record system went down.

An NHS spokesperson said: “As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments.

“The advice for Monday remains that patients should attend appointments as normal unless told otherwise.”

A global IT outage is “likely” to occur again unless governments and industry work together to “design out” technological flaws, a leading cyber expert has said.

Professor Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said “the worst” of the global IT outage was over but countries would “have to learn to cope” with future flaws.

The founding chief executive of the NCSC told Sky News: “The worst of this is over because the nature of the crisis was such that it went very badly wrong, very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and, essentially, it was turned off.”

The global IT outage caused by CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, Microsoft has said.

Estimating the impact of the update, Microsoft said it had affected less than 1 per cent of Windows machines.

“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services,” the firm said in a statement.

“This incident demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem – global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors, and customers.

“It’s also a reminder of how important it is for all of us across the tech ecosystem to prioritise operating with safe deployment and disaster.”

Before this week, CrowdStrike was known for finding the cause of problems, rather than causing them. The company – headquartered in Austin, Texas, but with a reach across the world – was most famous for having investigated large-scale hacks, such as those on Sony Pictures and breaches at the Democratic National Committee that it blamed on Russian spies.

It has built a huge business out of that and other work. It was worth $80bn (£62bn) when trading on the Nasdaq closed on Thursday – though its share price has since fallen by 20 per cent. It reported revenues of $3bn in the last year.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 – by a team that included George Kurtz, the CEO that has been representing the company as it recovers from the problems – and immediately caught the interest of investors. The year after, it launched with a $26m investment round, and it has gathered more investment since.

Technology editor Andrew Griffin reports:

Passengers continue to face disruption at airports on Saturday as airlines reel from the impact of the global IT outage.

Nearly 7,000 flights were cancelled across the globe on Friday, including 408 to and from the UK.

As of 10am on Saturday, the UK had seen 23 departing and 25 inbound flights cancelled, according to figures from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

NHS England has reported that its systems are “coming back online in most areas” but “still running slightly slower than usual” and warned of “continued disruption” to GP services into next week.

An NHS spokesperson said: “The majority of systems including the EMIS appointment and patient record system, are now coming back online in most areas, however they are still running slightly slower than usual.

“As practices recover from the loss of IT systems on Friday, there may be some continued disruption, particularly to GP services, in some areas into next week as practices work to rebook appointments.

“The advice for Monday remains that patients should attend appointments as normal unless told otherwise.

“You can contact your GP in the usual way, otherwise please use your local pharmacy, NHS 111 online or call 111 for urgent health advice as normal.

“The 999 service has remained working over this period and so people should use this as they usually would in emergency situations.”

GPs and pharmacies have said that disruption from the global IT outage will continue over the weekend, amid warnings of travel delays after flight cancellations.

A flawed update rolled out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems.

A fix was deployed for a bug in the update, which affected Microsoft Windows PCs, on Friday, as CrowdStrike’s chief executive said it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.