Millions of Windows devices were affected by the global IT outage caused by CrowdStrike’s update, according to Microsoft.
The company said 8.5million devices - less than 1 per cent of Windows machines - were hit by the glitch which caused chaos around the world on Friday.
It comes as IT experts warn it could take weeks for global tech infrastructure to fully recover after the botched software update brought down systems worldwide.
Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, said: “In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly. But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting into blue screens, that could take days and weeks.”
The massive disruption to Microsoft systems has included flight delays and cancellations, as well as impacting hospitals, banks, supermarkets and millions of businesses.
Close to 7,000 flights were cancelled globally on Friday – equating to 6.2 per cent of all scheduled flights, according to Aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Key Points
- Up to 8.5million Windows devices affected by IT glitch
- Dozens more flights cancelled as impact of Microsoft IT outage spreads into weekend
- Close to 7,000 flights cancelled globally yesterday including 207 UK departures, data shows
- National Lottery app and website goes down across UK amid global IT outage
- ‘The largest IT outage in history'
- CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says sorry to customers
IT outage ‘likely’ to occur again unless government and industry work together
18:30
Tara Cobham
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.”
Sam Hall reports:
Doctor issues advice to patients waiting for prescriptions amid global IT outage
18:00
Tara Cobham
Up to 8.5million Windows devices affected by IT glitch
17:59
Alexander Butler
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.”
What is Crowdstrike? The $80bn company linked to largest IT outage in history
17:30
Tara Cobham
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:
Air passengers facing further disruption following world IT outage
17:00
Tara Cobham
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.
Luke O’Reilly reports:
Simon Calder explains your rights if flight is cancelled by global IT outage
16:30
Tara Cobham
NHS England reports systems ‘coming back online’ but ‘still running slow’
16:07
Tara Cobham
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 say global IT outage disruption to continue over weekend
16:00
Tara Cobham
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.
Sam Hall reports:
Stranded airline passengers told to ‘come on down’ to Dover port amid IT outage
15:30
Tara Cobham
Holidaymakers left stranded by cancelled flights on Friday have been encouraged to take a ferry from Dover as thousands of families start to embark on summer holidays.
Flight delays and cancellations are among the disruption expected to continue into the weekend after Friday’s global IT outage, with experts warning it could take weeks for systems to fully recover.
It comes as thousands of families start to embark on summer holidays amid the end of the academic year for many schools.
William Warnes reports:
Bombay Bicycle Club reschedule festival date they missed due to global IT outage
15:00
Tara Cobham
Indie rock band Bombay Bicycle Club have announced the rescheduled date of a music festival performance they missed due to the global IT outage.
The British group, comprised of Jack Steadman, Jamie MacColl, Suren de Saram and Ed Nash, were due to play Poolbar Festival in the Austrian town of Feldkirch on Friday but missed it due to a cancelled flight.
In a post to Instagram on Friday evening they said: “Unfortunately our flights to get to tonight’s Poolbar Festival show were cancelled because of the IT outage.
Hannah Roberts reports:
IT systems of UK airports and train operators ‘working as normal’, says transport secretary
14:37
Tara Cobham
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said the IT systems of UK airports and train operators are “back up and working as normal”, but “some delays and a small number of cancelled flights” were expected.
In a post on social media, Ms Haigh wrote: “Pleased to report that UK airports and train operators have their IT systems back up and working as normal.
“We are in constant communication with industry.
“There continues to be no known safety or security issues arising from the outage.
“Some delays and a small number of cancelled flights are expected today.
“Train operators are no longer reporting cancellations and delays as a result of the IT failure.
“Thank you to everyone who has worked so hard to get systems up and running again.”
Holidaymakers warned of summer travel disruption amid fallout from IT outage
14:30
Tara Cobham
Holidaymakers have been warned of potential travel disruption this weekend as UK transport networks continue to feel the impact of Friday’s global IT outage.
Flight delays and cancellations are among the disruption expected to continue into the weekend after the outage, with experts warning it could take weeks for systems to fully recover.
It comes as thousands of families start to embark on summer holidays amid the end of the academic year for many schools.
William Warnes reports:
Watch: People sleeping on the ground at Hawaii airports after Microsoft outage
14:00
Mike Bedigan
British Airways traveller forced to push his way on to flight as IT outage throws Heathrow into chaos
13:49
Rebecca Thomas
Chris Shaw, 61, who is a consultant based in London, boarded a replacement British Airways flight from Heathrow to Berlin at 8.45am on Saturday after his original afternoon flight to the German city was cancelled on Friday.
While at Heathrow Airport, he took a video of several passengers standing in a long “seek assistance queue” as the British Airways app did not allow passengers to check in, nor did the automated check-in desk.
He told the PA news agency: “The queue was so long we would have missed the flight, which was clearly overbooked.
“So I pushed in and insisted to be dealt with. The flight was absolutely full, so if I’d not pushed in, we wouldn’t have even got seats.
“We arrived at the Gate with 20 mins to spare. Security was excellent and swift, but my criticism of Heathrow was the lack of information and staff very poorly briefed.
“There was no prioritisation of urgent flight needs nor even notice boards telling passengers where to go or what to do.”
Warning over cyberattack risks after global IT outage
13:38
Rebecca Thomas
Crowdstrike, the firm responsible for the global IT outage, has said individuals have attempted to capitalise on the incident and distribute malicious files to Latin America based customers.
A statement from the firm said following the incident on 19 July, “CrowdStrike Intelligence has since observed threat actors leveraging the event to distribute a malicious ZIP archive...Spanish filenames and instructions within the ZIP archive indicate this campaign is likely targeting Latin America-based (LATAM) CrowdStrike customers.”
Although the incident causing the outage was not the result of a cyberattack, officials have warned there could be an increased risk of malicious attacks.
On Saturday the UK National Cyber Security Centre warned affected organisations over “an increase in related phishing” as “opportunistic malicious actors seek to take advantage of the situation”.
Passenger receives handwritten boarding pass during Microsoft outage
13:30
Tara Cobham
A flight passenger has shown off one effect of the current Microsoft computer outage.
On Friday, July 19, it was reported that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike issued a faulty software update on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, crashing and infecting computers with the “blue screen of death” that left users unable to restart.
Because companies have computer systems run via Microsoft, this has resulted in flights being canceled, television stations being taken offline, and some banks being unable to make payments.
Brittany Miller reports:
Third of England’s pharmacy drug supplies hit by global IT outage, officials say
13:14
Tara Cobham
A global IT outage hit one-third of drug deliveries to pharmacies in England as chaos impacted thousands of GP practices and hospitals across the country declared critical incidents.
GPs, pharmacies and NHS 111 services across the country suffered major disruption on Friday after an update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company crashed Microsoft Windows systems.
The IT bug hit EMIS which is used by around 60 per cent of GP practices - 3,700- to access patient records, book appointments and issue prescriptions.
Health correspondent Rebecca Thomas reports:
Huge queues as global IT outage causes chaos at Heathrow Airport
13:04
Tara Cobham
In pictures: Eerie scenes in New York as Times Square screens go dark
13:00
Mike Bedigan
What happened and when will the global IT outage be fixed?
12:30
Tara Cobham
Experts have warned it could take weeks for systems to fully recover from a global outage which has seen disruption including flight delays and cancellations.
A flawed update rolled out by CrowdStrike, one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, knocked many offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems.
Here is a closer look at what we know about the incident:
Watch: Simon Calder explains your rights if flight is cancelled by global IT outage
12:04
Tara Cobham
Growing warnings over criminals exploiting mass IT outage
12:03
Tara Cobham
Warnings that criminals could exploit the global IT outage are growing amid fears it could cause a second wave of disruption.
Australia's cyber intelligence agency said on Saturday that "malicious websites and unofficial code" were being released online claiming to aid recovery from Friday's global digital outage.
On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) - the country's cyber intelligence agency - said "a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident".
On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre "strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only".
Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil said on social media platform X on Saturday that Australians should "be on the lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts".
What caused the Microsoft IT outage that broke flights, banks and trains across the world?
12:00
Tara Cobham
A widespread computer outage left flights grounded, TV stations offline and much of the world’s infrastructure not working on Friday.
Cyber security experts said the outage was “unprecedented” in its reach, affecting many of the world’s biggest companies.
The cause of the problems was initially mysterious: Windows computers showed a blue screen of death, or BSOD, as if they had just spontaneously stopped working.
Andrew Griffin reports:
Passengersays his mother made him arrive four hours before flight at Gatwick
11:55
Tara Cobham
A passenger has said his mother made him arrive four hours before their flight at Gatwick Airport.
Asked if he had given himself lots of time to make his flight, Renato Martinez, 18, from London, said: “My mum has. My mum has given us lots of time. Every time, she loves coming early.”
He said he was flying to Ecuador to visit his family there.
And the teenager added he expected the check-in queue to take about 45 minutes in total.
“It’s going quicker than I expected,” he said.
Pictured: Hundreds queues at Gatwick as at least 48 more UK flights cancelled on Saturday
11:44
Tara Cobham
Hundreds join long queues at Gatwick Airport as airlines deal with global IT outage fallout
11:39
Tara Cobham
Hundreds of people have joined long check-in queues at Gatwick Airport as airlines continue to deal with the fallout from the global IT outage.
Charles, 50, from the Midlands, said he was glad he was in a queue to leave the country rather than arriving to the UK.
“I’m glad it’s because we’re going out,” he said.
“It’d be different if we were going back.”
He said his British Airways flight to Jamaica was in three hours, but he arrived early to get through the queues.
“Because of the situation yesterday on the news we just took a bit more time just to get here. I’m glad we did, to be honest with you.”
He said he believed the long queues on Saturday morning had been caused by everyone on long haul flights arriving at the airport early. And he added: “So they’ve all just given themselves an extra hour or two.”
Biden in contact with Crowdstrike over ongoing outage situation
11:30
Tara Cobham
President Joe Biden is receiving regular updates on the global outages, according to a senior Administration official.
“President Biden will continue to receive updates on the CrowdStrike global tech outage that disrupted operations across multiple industries on Friday,” per the official.
“The White House is in regular contact with CrowdStrike’s executive leadership and tracking progress on remediating affected systems. We have offered US government support.
“Our understanding is that this is not a cyber attack, but rather a faulty technical update.The White House has been convening agencies to assess impacts to the US government’s operations and entities around the country.
“At this time, our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains, and 911 centers are able to receive and process calls.
“We are assessing impact to local hospitals, surface transportation systems, and law enforcement closely and will provide further updates as we learn more. We stand ready to provide assistance as needed.”
Close to 7,000 flights cancelled globally yesterday including 207 UK departures, data shows
11:22
Global Travel Editor Annabel Grossman
Close to 7,000 flights were cancelled globally yesterday – equating to 6.2 per cent of all scheduled flights.
Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported that 6,855 flights were cancelled on Friday amid the global IT outage.
Of those, 207 were UK departures, which was 6.7 per cent of all scheduled flights, while 201 were UK arrivals.
As of 10am today, 1,639 flights have been cancelled globally – equating to 1.58 per cent of all scheduled flights.
The flight data shows that 23 UK departures have been cancelled so far today, which is 0.9 per cent of all scheduled flights, with a further 25 inbound flights cancelled.
What is Crowdstrike? The $80bn company linked to largest IT outage in history
11:00
Shweta Sharma
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 who 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.
Read our detailed report.
IT outage is a ‘wake up call’ and 'should never have been allowed to happen’
10:55
Tara Cobham
A technology researcher said the global IT outage was a “wake up call” and “should never have been allowed to happen”.
Dr Stephanie Hare told BBC Breakfast: “I think it’s a process error.
“This should never have been allowed to happen because you should be testing your software updates and making sure that everything is fine before you roll them out – particularly rolling them out worldwide.
“So I think what we’ve all had here is a really big wake up call about how lacking in resilience our IT systems are.”
Dr Hare added: “Anyone who has been working in IT, and particularly in cybersecurity, has known this for years.
“We underinvest, and hopefully this is going to make people maybe stop talking about generative AI so much and actually start working on cybersecurity again.”
National Lottery app and website goes down across UK amid global IT outage
10:45
Tara Cobham
The National Lottery app and website has gone down across the UK amid a global IT outage.
Thousands of users are currently unable to access results or buy tickets ahead of Saturday night’s draw.
Customers have been reporting issues accessing the National Lottery app as well as the website since around 8pm on Friday, according to outage website Downdetector, with complaints peaking at more than 2,800 on Saturday morning.
Read the full report here:
People should draw similar lessons from IT outage as from pandemic, says academic
10:37
Tara Cobham
People should draw similar lessons from the global IT outage as they did from the pandemic, an academic has said.
Computer scientists Sir Nigel Shadbolt told the BBC’s Today programme: “Often these issues are left (to) technological elites.
“This impacts everyone and we need to understand how those effects ripple through society and think about how we all make ourselves more resilient.”
He added: “The resilience in general of these systems is something very special. We depend on these systems and by and large they are working to very high levels of quality.
“But when they do go wrong, and it’s like a pandemic, literally we should draw similar lessons, what lessons do we draw?
“As individuals, what should we be thinking? We should be thinking about a degree of resilience in our own lives. We should think about having perhaps multiple systems, not depending just on one.”
Pharmacist warns pharmacy backlogs will continue
10:36
Tara Cobham
Thora, a pharmacist in Manchester, told the BBC’s Today programme that pharmacy backlogs would continue after Friday’s IT outage.
She said: “What we know at the moment is obviously we have been experiencing some heightened tensions in some pharmacies by patients but also people have been really understanding and have been really patient with us
“This backlog will continue because obviously there will have been patients who have been unable to access their prescription because it will be hand-written at the surgery, and we’ll get a bit of a backlog, or they will eventually come through to us.
“But it’s a bit of a concern.”
Chartered security professional warns of ‘lingering effects’ from IT outage
10:35
Tara Cobham
A chartered security professional said there would be “lingering effects” from the IT outage that has caused disruption around the world.
James Bore told Sky News: “There are definitely going to be lingering effects.
“The largest companies and the ones with most critical services, they are going to have thrown everything they can at fixing it.
“But for other companies where they don’t have as many people to put hands on keyboard – because that’s the key thing – each fix requires a manual intervention with the computer, and we’re talking millions of computers.
“If you’ve only got one IT person in the company and 2000 employees – it’s not going to be fixed overnight.
“That’s going to be weeks of work for that person just travelling around or getting everyone to come in and sort out their laptops.”
Global IT outage causes pharmacies ‘continuous problems'
10:34
Tara Cobham
The vice chairman of the National Pharmacy Association said the global IT outage had caused pharmacies “continuous problems”.
Olivier Picard told BBC Breakfast: “I was in a pharmacy yesterday. In fact, I’m in a pharmacy this morning and we’ve had continuous problems.”
Mr Picard added: “What we couldn’t do was download new prescriptions on July 19, but anything prior to that, that was downloaded on our computers, we were able to dispense.
“Most pharmacies will have an office based or computer-based system rather than online.
“That’s not all, but that’s the majority of pharmacies, so we were able to continue working with what we already had.
“What we couldn’t do is receive new prescriptions issued after the outage.”
GP says outage meant ‘everything went down’ in her surgery
10:33
Tara Cobham
A GP said the global IT outage meant “everything went down” in her surgery and warned the disruption would cause “a lot more issues later on in the week”.
Asked about Friday’s outage, Dr Fari Ahmad told BBC Breakfast: “Everything went down. There are supposed to be some business continuity things that are supposed to help, but we couldn’t access some of them. I know some places lost all their phone lines as well.
“People were struggling to get in. We were struggling to tell people what was going on. And if people did turn up, you had to see them without accessing their medical records. The doctors and the surgery went down to pen and paper.”
Dr Ahmad added: “We had people who were supposed to come in for results, and we couldn’t see them. We said: ‘Sorry, we can’t help you.’ We were just trying to deal with the emergencies on the day that really couldn’t wait.
“We couldn’t do our routine stuff, so the implications for us is a lot of that’s been bumped up.
“It’s all going to build up, so there’s going to be a lot more issues later on in the week.”
Flight delays across the weekend
10:30
Tara Cobham
Airports across the UK - including London Gatwick, Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport and Belfast International Airport - are now stressing that passengers should check with airlines for any delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.
"Some delays and cancellations will continue over the weekend," said a spokesperson for London Gatwick. "We strongly advise passengers to check with their airline for the latest updates."
Patients collecting prescriptions could still face disruption this weekend
10:08
Tara Cobham
The National Pharmacy Association has warned that patients collecting prescriptions could still face disruption this weekend following the global IT outage.
Nick Kaye, chairman of the National Pharmacy Association, which represents independent community pharmacies in the UK, said: “Systems are by and large back online and medicine deliveries have resumed in many community pharmacies today after the global IT outage.
“However, yesterday’s outage will have caused backlogs and we expect services to continue to be disrupted this weekend as pharmacies recover.
“We urge people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy and some may be still prioritising those patients with emergency prescriptions from their GP surgery.”
Ex-National Cyber Security Centre chief says worst of IT outage is over but warns over future flaws
10:07
Tara Cobham
The former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre said “the worst” of the global IT outage is over but warned that countries would “have to learn to cope” with future flaws.
Professor Ciaran Martin 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.”
Prof Martin added: “Until governments and the industry get together and work out how to design out some of these flaws, I’m afraid we are likely to see more of these again.
“Within countries like the UK and elsewhere in Europe, you can try and build up that national resilience to cope with this. But ultimately, a lot of this is going to be determined in the US.
“If there’s going to be regulation to try and iron out these flaws, it’ll probably have to come from the US and there’s not a great deal that we can do about that.
“So unless and until the structure of the way we do tech changes, we’re going to have to learn to cope with these things, rather than eliminate them.”
Millions could face delay in getting paid as global IT outage hits payroll software
10:03
Tara Cobham
Workers globally may not be paid on time due to a major IT outage causing chaos around the world, payroll businesses have warned.
The IT outage has resulted in queues and delays at airports, disruption to GP services and payment failures in some shops.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is “actively working” to fix a “defect” in an update for Microsoft Windows users which sparked the outage.
Rebecca Thomas reports:
Elon Musk appears to mock CrowdStrike outage
10:00
Mike Bedigan
Crowdstrike server room pic.twitter.com/9n5rwiYxMj
— Not Elon Musk (@iamnot_elon) July 19, 2024
Dozens more flights cancelled as impact of Microsoft IT outage spreads into weekend
09:32
Tara Cobham
An estimated 50,000 British travellers have woken up where they did not intend to be this morning after 350 flights to, from and within the UK were cancelled on Friday.
At least 45 more flights to, from and within the UK have been cancelled on Saturday as airlines struggle to recover operations – affecting upwards of 7,000 passengers.
So what are their options for getting where they need to be?
Our Travel Correspondent Simon Calder reports:
When the global IT outage issue will be fixed?
09:15
Shweta Sharma
Experts have warned it could take weeks for systems to fully recover from a global outage which has seen disruption including flight delays and cancellations.
A problematic update released by CrowdStrike, a leading global cybersecurity company, disrupted internet services worldwide on Friday. This caused flight and train cancellations and severely impacted some healthcare systems.
What exactly happened?
CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz confirmed the issue was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts” - in short, a flaw in a software “sensor configuration” update pushed out to customers.
He said a fix had been deployed for a bug in an update which affected Microsoft Windows PCs, causing many to crash, some displaying the so-called “blue screen of death”, and becoming unusable.
CrowdStrike confirmed Apple Mac and Linux users were unaffected.
What is
