IT experts warn it could take weeks for global tech infrastructure to fully recover after a botched software update brought down systems worldwide.
The massive disruption to Microsoft systems has included flight delays and cancellations, as well as impacting hospitals, banks, supermarkets and millions of businesses.
Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned it could take "weeks" for all computers and systems to be fully restored. “In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly,” he said. “But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting into blue screens... that could take days and weeks.”
The chief executive of CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company whose update crashed Microsoft Windows systems, said he was “deeply sorry”.
George Kurtz said it was not “a security incident or cyber attack”, and that a defect was found in a “single content update for Windows hosts”.
More than 5,078 flights, 4.6 per cent of those scheduled, were cancelled globally on Friday, including 167 UK departures with knock-on effects to last into the weekend.
Key Points
- Dozens more flights cancelled as impact of Microsoft IT outage spreads into weekend
- More distruptions expected over weekend
- ‘The largest IT outage in history'
- CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says sorry to customers
- Cyber security software linked with outage
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 the scale of the impact?
Around the world, banks, supermarkets and other major institutions saw services disrupted, while many businesses were unable to take digital payments or access key databases.
NHS England said “the majority of GP practices” had experienced disruption and ambulance services reported increases in 999 and NHS 111 calls from patients who were unable to contact other NHS providers.
The National Pharmacy Association said pharmacies had seen issues “including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries”.
Airlines reported being unable to process passengers and resorted to manually checking in customers at airports around the world with 167 flights departing from the UK and 171 incoming cancelled on Friday. Aviation analytics company Cirium said 5,078 flights - or 4.6 per cent of those scheduled - were cancelled globally.
How long will the issue take to be rectified?
Industry expert Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned it could take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored, while Mr Kurtz said it would take “some time”.
He told NBC: “Some of the systems that aren’t recovering, we’re working with them, so it could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover.”
Microsoft deputy chief information security officer Ann Johnson said they could not predict how long it would take to get all customers back online.
Signs of disruption are likely to remain into the weekend with the National Pharmacy Association warning pharmacy services are likely to see delays as outlets deal with a backlog of medicine deliveries while airports across the UK stressed that passengers should check with airlines for any delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.
Recovery of IT systems could take weeks
09:00
Chris Stevenson
Depending on the number of PCs and in how many different locations they are located, companies could face weeks of disruption, according to IT experts.“In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly,” said Adam Leon Smith, from the BCS, chartered institute for IT. “But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting into blue screens and endless loops it may be difficult to restore and that could take days and weeks.”
CrowdStrike CEO ‘deeply sorry’ for issues caused by outages
08:30
Mike Bedigan
Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can…
Major tech outages in recent years
07:46
Shweta Sharma
A global tech outage disrupted operations across multiple industries, with many companies expected to grapple with the disruption in services in the coming days.
Here are some of the biggest tech outages in recent years, in chronological order:
British Airways
IAG-owned British Airways was hit by a major computer system failure in May 2017 that stranded 75,000 passengers over a holiday weekend, sparking a public relations disaster and pledges from the carrier that it would do better in future. According to media reports, the blackout was caused by a maintenance contractor who accidentally switched off power.
Alphabet
Some of Google’s most popular services including YouTube, Gmail and Google Drive were down for an hour during an outage on 14 December 2020. According to outage monitoring website DownDetector, more than 12,000 YouTube users were affected in various parts of the world, including the United States, Britain and India.
Fastly
In June 2021, thousands of government, news and social media websites across the globe were hit by a widespread hour-long outage linked to US-based cloud company Fastly. The issue affected several high traffic sites including Reddit, Amazon, CNN, PayPal, Spotify, Al Jazeera Media Network and the New York Times with outages ranging from a few minutes to around an hour.
Akamai
Websites of dozens of financial institutions and airlines in Australia and the United States were briefly down on 17 June 2021, due to server-related glitches at content delivery network provider Akamai. According to the firm, the problem was caused by a bug in its software.
Meta
Meta-owned social media platforms Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went dark for six hours on 4 October 2021, with 10.6 million users reporting problems worldwide. The company said the outage was caused by a faulty configuration change.
X Corp
Social media platform Twitter suffered a major outage on 28 December 2022, leaving tens of thousands of users globally unable to access the popular social media platform or use its key features for several hours before services appeared to come back online. Downdetector tracked more than 10,000 affected users from the United States, about 2,500 from Japan and about 2,500 from the UK at the peak of the disruption.
Timelapse: How global Microsoft IT outage grounded flights across US
07:00
Mike Bedigan
Microsoft outage impacting people across world - in photos
06:15
Shweta Sharma
A botched security update wreaked havoc on global industries, leading to large-scale IT outages on computer systems.
Air passengers worldwide faced delays, flight cancellations and headaches checking in at airports as the screens went blank.
Banks and financial services companies warned customers of disruptions and traders across markets spoke of problems executing transactions. Insurers could face a raft of business interruption claims.
CrowdStrike CEO says ‘fix has been deployed'
05:30
Mike Bedigan
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has said that the IT issue causing a global outage has been identified and that a fix has been deployed.
A statement from Kurtz put out on Friday afternoon confirmed that the outage was not a “security incident or cyber attack.”
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” the statement read.
“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.
We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”
5,000 flights cancelled across world following outages, Cirium says
04:29
Shweta Sharma
Air travel may prove to be the worst hit sector in the Microsoft outage, as carriers saw lengthy delays and cancellations with passengers waiting at airports for hours.
Out of more than 110,000 scheduled commercial flights on Friday, 5,000 were cancelled globally with more expected, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Delta Air Lines was one of the hardest hit, with 20 per cent of its flights cancelled, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. The US carrier said it expected additional delays and cancellations potentially through the weekend.
Airports from Los Angeles to Singapore, Amsterdam and Berlin said airlines were checking in passengers with handwritten boarding passes, causing delays.
In the UK, around 167 flights scheduled to depart airports were axed, with others delayed. Around 171 flights due to land in the UK were cancelled, following the technical glitch.
A spokesperson for Manchester Airport said: “Check-in and boarding for the affected airlines are being carried out manually and are taking longer than normal resulting in some long queues at check-in.“Some flights may be impacted by delays and schedules have been affected by issues caused by the effects of the global IT outage at airports all over the world. This means some flights could be cancelled by airlines at short notice
Watch: CrowdStrike CEO breaks silence after global outage
04:00
Mike Bedigan
CrowdStrike CEO warns of potential scams as systems recover
03:58
Shweta Sharma
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz urged people to remain “remain vigilant” against potential scams as systems recover.
In a letter to customers and partners, Kurtz said: “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this.
“I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives.”
McAfee, a security software company, said opportunistic scammers are capitalising amid the chaotic situation.
“McAfee has already seen scams, where fraudsters are exploiting the current vulnerabilities to deceive consumers,” the website said in an article.
“These scams range from phishing attacks related to flight rescheduling, to cybercrooks posing as banks to steal login information, and even retailers requesting alternate payment methods.”
More distruptions expected over weekend
03:53
Shweta Sharma
More disruptions such as flight delays and cancellations are expected to continue during the weekend after a global IT outage.
Experts have warned it could take weeks for systems to fully recover after a flawed update rolled out by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many offline around the world on Friday.
Industry expert Adam Leon Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could even take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.
“The fix will have to be applied to many computers around the world. So if computers are getting blue screens and endless loops, it could be more difficult and take days and weeks,” he said.
Experts warned users to “remain vigilant” against potential scams as systems recover.
In a letter to customers and partners, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said: “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this.
“I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you’re engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives.”
Watch: People sleeping on the ground at Hawaii airports after Microsoft outage
03:20
Mike Bedigan
CrowdStrike called other security firms and Government to help solve outage
02:20
Mike Bedigan
A group of private sector and government agencies were called together by CrowdStrike to find a solution to the global tech outage, according to the former head of the computer security company McAfee.
Former McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt told CNN said the call was set up by the company and the various organizations worked overnight to determine if there was a potential threat. The call reportedly included the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other private and government organizations.
“This particular release was faulty as admitted by George Kurtz, the CEO, and we then had to replace it,” DeWalt told CNN. “But at that point, the damage had been done, and we now had to move into manual mode.”
He added that some of the companies “spent the entire night deploying thousands of people by hand reloading operating systems, starting servers back up again.”
What is CrowdStrike
01:20
Mike Bedigan
According to its website, CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity leader, and “has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk — endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.”
Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and advanced AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.
The Falcon platform delivers “rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.”
Class action lawsuits expected following the global outages
Saturday 20 July 2024 00:20
Mike Bedigan
Class action lawsuits could follow swiftly from the global power outages following billions worth of estimated lost profits, loss of date and economic opportunities, a legal expert has said.
Digital privacy and business law attorney Adam Grant, shareholder at the Los Angeles-based law firm Grant Shenon, said that legal liability, if any, would come down to the actual reason for the crash.
“Software updates are very common. They frequently cause issues. It is not below the standard of care for an update to impact other systems. However, this has been described as the largest computer crash in history,” Grant said, in a statement shared with The Independent.
“I expect there will be great focus on the quality control steps taken to minimize any impact before sending out the update. The claims would likely be based on negligence arising out of what the software company should have known regarding the update.
“I do expect class actions will be filed within a short period of time primarily based on such a theory. The damages will be in the billions and include lost profits, loss of data and loss economic opportunities and reputation repair.”
Outage chaos hits Starbucks mobile ordering
Friday 19 July 2024 23:50
Mike Bedigan
The Starbucks mobile app, normally a smooth system for customers to pick up grab-and-go coffee orders, has also been thrown into chaos by the global outages.
“Starbucks is among those companies experiencing impacts due to a widespread third-party systems outage, resulting in a temporary outage of our mobile order ahead and pay features,” Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in a statement emailed to NBC News.
“We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Tech outage halts surgeries, medical treatments across the US
Friday 19 July 2024 23:25
Mike Bedigan
Alison Baulos says her 73-year-old father was about to head to a Kentucky hospital for open-heart surgery when it was abruptly canceled early Friday morning.
His was one of the many operations and medical treatments halted across the country because of a global technology outage.
Read the full story here:
Long queues for Ryanair at Stansted
Friday 19 July 2024 23:00
Mike Bedigan
Here at Stansted Airport there are large crowds in the departures hall, far greater than we’d expect even for such a busy travel day. The vast majority appear to be at Ryanair where there are long queues for check-in, snaking right through the airport. Ryanair has been reporting problems with online check-in and asking passengers to check-in at the airport if needed, suggesting that they arrive at Stansted three hours before their flight. Security lines are long but moving efficiently; time through security is under 30 mins
Crowdstrike ‘understands gravity’ of situation
Friday 19 July 2024 21:45
Mike Bedigan
In a statement issued on Friday morning Crowdstrike apoligized to all those affected by the outage, saying it understood “the gravity of the situation”.
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on,” the statement read.
“We assure our customers that CrowdStrike is operating normally and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. If your systems are operating normally, there is no impact to their protection if the Falcon Sensor is installed.”
Friday 19 July 2024 21:20
Mike Bedigan
Mehdi Daoudi, CEO of internet performance monitoring company Catchpoint CEO, said that the global outage on Friday was a “stark reminder” of the potential infallibilty of the modern digital age.
“The scale of today's global IT outage is unparalleled in recent history,” Daoudi said, in a statement shared with The Independent.
“It serves as a stark reminder that our entire world is powered by digital experiences and that the internet is neither magically infallible nor inherently resilient. This is a reminder you need to manage and control change: Don't blindly update software or change configuration.
“At any moment, even the smallest oversight or piece of unpreparedness can bring systems—and consequently businesses—down.”
Daoudi continued: “Preparation and visibility are key, not just to prevent such outages but to mitigate the vast financial risks they pose.
“The fallout from today’s event will likely be measured not just in the disruption of services but in exponential financial losses worldwide, potentially amounting to millions or even billions in lost revenue.
“It highlights a critical vulnerability: our increasing dependency on digital infrastructure can translate into staggering costs when that infrastructure fails. Kudos to all the IT professionals and teams are working tirelessly to resolve this issue and restore services.”
Judicial system operations affected in California
Friday 19 July 2024 21:00
Mike Bedigan
Court and jail operations were affected by the global outage in the state of California.
Los Angeles County Superior Court exprienced “significant system-wide connectivity issues” wile further south in San Diego County inmate bookings were limited.
“The Court is experiencing significant system-wide connectivity issues that are impacting the Court’s ability to conduct business,” the Los Angeles Superior Court said in an email, adding hearings with parties expecting to appear remotely will be rescheduled.
In San Diego, jail bookings were limited for a few hours while department officials employed back up systems.
“We were able to resolve the challenges relatively quickly, thanks to our exceptional team of professionals in our Sheriff’s Data Services and Detentions Processing Divisions,” the San Diego County Sheriff said, per CNN.
“These men and women worked closely with our Sheriff’s Communications Center, as well as our patrol and detentions deputies, to ensure essential services were not interrupted.”
Elsewhere in California, “all 911, public safety communications and critical infrastructure is functioning as expected,” the state Office of Emergency Services said in a social media post.
“At this time, there are no reports of impacts to life-safety public services in California,” the governor’s office said.
.@Cal_OES is closely monitoring the global software outage. Initial reports indicate minor state system outages. However, all 911, public safety communications and critical infrastructure is functioning as expected.
— California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (@Cal_OES) July 19, 2024
In pictures: Chaos at North American airports
Friday 19 July 2024 20:40
Mike Bedigan
Watch: CrowdStrike CEO breaks silence after global outage
Friday 19 July 2024 20:20
Mike Bedigan
US west coast affected by outage
Friday 19 July 2024 20:00
Mike Bedigan
The effects of the outage have been felt across the US with hospitals and transport links felt on the east coast, and a state of emergency declared in the west coast state of Oregon.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an emergency declaration Friday morning for the city due to the ongoing IT outage, according to a news release.
“The issue is causing computer outages and affecting multiple systems globally, impacting City servers in the City Data Centers as well as employee computers, with impacts to VPN connection and Single Sign On (SSO) to cloud services,” according to a release put out by the mayor’s office.
“City services that rely on Microsoft Operating Systems using Crowdstrike Endpoint Protection, including certain essential City service providers, are impacted by the problem including emergency communications.”
NY Governor says impact of outage is ‘unprecedented situation'
Friday 19 July 2024 19:40
Mike Bedigan
Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York, has described the impacts of the global IT outage on transportation links and health care facilities as an “unprecedented situation.”
“Our top priority is emergency services. We are working with localities to ensure that 911 systems are operational,” Hochul said in a statement.
“This has a widespread impact on hospital systems as well,” she said, adding that “most have backup systems” which are “not technology-based” but rather manned by people.
There is no indication of a cybersecurity threat or risk to personal sensitive information, Hochul said on Friday.
The 911 system is reportedly still working in all 62 NY state counties.
Safety advocacy group warns of dangers of commercial grade software in critical systems
Friday 19 July 2024 19:20
Mike Bedigan
Following the outage, Dan O’Dowd, secure software expert and founder of safety advocacy group The Dawn Project, warned of the dangers of deploying commercial grade software in safety critical systems.
“The immense body of software developed using Silicon Valley’s ‘move fast and break things’ culture means that the software our lives depend on is riddled with defects and vulnerabilities. Defects in this software can result in a mass failure event even more serious than the one we have seen today,” he said in a statement shared with The Independent.
“We have seen that our healthcare, communications, transportation, water treatment plants, and power grids are all reliant on connected systems built on defective software that can cause the world to grind to halt from a single defect.
“We must convince the CEOs and Boards of Directors of the companies that build the systems our lives depend on to rewrite their software so that it never fails and can’t be hacked. The clock is ticking down to a Cyber Armageddon.
“Secure and reliable software exists - it is already deployed in military applications and on commercial airliners. These companies will not take cybersecurity seriously until the public demands it. And we must demand it now, before a major disaster strikes.”
Krispy Kreme offers free donuts to those affected by outage
Friday 19 July 2024 19:00
Mike Bedigan
Donut brand Krispy Kreme offered free donuts to all those affected by the power outage, joking that a “Sweet-ware Update” was available.
“Does technology have you down today?” the company wrote on Instagram.
“Our windows are working great and so is our Hot Light! Come on in and help yourself to a FREE Original Glazed® Doughnut from 5-7pm to add some sweetness to this sour day.”
Transport systems in North America briefly affected by outage
Friday 19 July 2024 18:20
Mike Bedigan
Some Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) customer information systems went offline briefly Friday morning due to the global outage.
“Train and bus service is unaffected,” the MTA said in a post. “Please listen for announcements in your station, on your train, or on your bus.”
The MTA is North America’s largest transportation network, according to its website, and serves a population of 15.3m people.
One in 25 flights cancelled globally
Friday 19 July 2024 18:15
Mike Bedigan
One in 25 flights globally has been cancelled today, according to the aviation analysts at Cirium.
As of 5pm BST, 4,295 flights had been grounded: 3.9 per cent of all planned flights worldwide.
That figure looks certain to increase significantly, especially as the usual Friday afternoon and evening peak in the US approaches.
Almost 300 flights to and from UK airports have so far been cancelled, corresponding to 4.6 per cent of all scheduled UK departures). The total number at 5pm UK was 285 flights grounded.
The Independent estimates that as many as 50,000 passengers who were planning to fly to or from the UK on Friday will wake up on Saturday where they did not intend to be.
Microsoft CEO issues statement on outage
Friday 19 July 2024 18:00
Mike Bedigan
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has released a company statement about the outage.
“CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems globally,” the statement rad.
“We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online.”
More than 2,000 flights in US canceled. 30,000 plus delayed globally
Friday 19 July 2024 17:40
Mike Bedigan
The number of flights canceled, into or outside the US has surpassed 2,000, according to Flightware.
The number of US delays was around 6,000 as of 12.30pm ET.
Delta has canceled at least 640 flights, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport currently has the most cancellations in the US with 226.
Flightware said that over 30,000 flights had been delayed globally, and the total cancellations numbered around 4,000.
Boston hospital cancels Friday appointments
Friday 19 July 2024 17:30
Mike Bedigan
A major worldwide software outage has affected many of our systems at Mass General Brigham, as well as many major businesses across the country. Due to the severity of this issue, all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are cancelled today.… pic.twitter.com/uqYz5XEHF7
— Brigham and Women's Hospital (@BrighamWomens) July 19, 2024
US hospitals also affected by outage
Friday 19 July 2024 17:15
Mike Bedigan
Hospitals on the US east coast have also been affected by the global outage.
Staffers in New York and Boston hospitals were unable to access some medical records or were having trouble figuring out where to send critically ill patients after several operating rooms were forced to shut down.
“Every day, we have a plan that’s mapped out really carefully so that we can plan our resources,” one employee of an affected New York City hospital system told NBC. “That’s all blown up.”
“The whole hospital is down,” an employee at Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston told the outlet. “They asked patients to stay home today until further notice, and we can’t access virtual visits either.”
Microsoft 365 back online
Friday 19 July 2024 16:40
Andrew Griffin
In a separate but unfortunately timed problem, Microsoft 365 reported early this morning that there was a problem accessing its apps and services. It says that issue has now been fixed and that is believes all apps and services have been recovered.
PR professional criticises CrowdStrike statement
Friday 19 July 2024 16:22
Andrew Griffin
Among other things, the CrowdStrike chief executive’s first statement didn’t include an apology. That has led to a range of frustrated reactions from people affected by today’s chaos.
Here’s a long thread from Lulu Cheng Meservey, who previous headed PR at Activision, looking at exactly why the statement didn’t work.
CrowdStrike CEO is getting pummeled for his response to the global outage.
— Lulu Cheng Meservey (@lulumeservey) July 19, 2024
Why everyone hates it:
1) WEAPONS-GRADE CORPO SPEAK
Let’s be clear. Legalese doublespeak is designed to dodge and obfuscate rather than inform or communicate. This statement was obviously written by a… pic.twitter.com/oLua908QR2
Images show chaos in airports
Friday 19 July 2024 16:17
Andrew Griffin
Here are some images from across the world showing the chaos at airports. A number of airlines have been forced to ground planes and cancel flights in response to the problems.
Some IT admins say that ‘turning it off and on again’ is working
Friday 19 July 2024 16:16
Andrew Griffin
On Reddit and other platforms, some IT admins have said that they have been able to get affected devices to work again simply by turning them off and on again, sometimes repeatedly.
CrowdStrike has recalled the broken update, meaning that any computers that were booted up afterwards should be working. But those that had already downloaded it need to download the fix from CrowdStrike before they will start working again.
The trouble is, of course, that those computers aren’t working enough to get the update. But some have found that repeatedly restarting gives the computer enough time to pull down the fix, and get those devices working again.
It could take ‘weeks’ before all systems are restored, expert warns
Friday 19 July 2024 15:29
Andrew Griffin
Industry expert Adam Smith of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, warned that it could even take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.
“The fix will have to be applied to many computers around the world. So if computers are getting blue screens and endless loops, it could be more difficult and take days and weeks,” he said.
“Microsoft Windows isn’t the main OS for mission-critical systems, that’s Linux - and so this could have been much worse.”
Earlier, George Kurtz, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, said that he was “deeply sorry” for the incident but warned that it could be “some time” before systems are restored.
In an interview with NBC’s Today Show in the US, Mr Kurtz said the incident was not a cyber attack, but admitted that despite
