A global IT outage caused by errors on Windows computers is disrupting banks, airports, TV stations, and other businesses, with major impacts including a US airline ground stop and Sky News going offline.
Banks, airports, TV stations, healthcare facilities, hotels, and numerous other businesses are experiencing severe IT outages due to widespread errors on Windows computers, causing flights to be halted and significant disruptions around the globe. In the early hours of Friday, companies in Australia began reporting Blue Screens of Death (BSODs) on devices running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. This issue quickly spread internationally, with disruptions reported from the UK, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US. TV station Sky News went offline, and US airlines United, Delta, and American Airlines implemented a “global ground stop” for all flights.
Live updates are continuing to show businesses shutting their operations down for the day. Payment processing has been disrupted however Mastercard & Visa state their payment processing systems are operational.
In the financial markets, stocks open lower following the tech outage. President Biden has been notified and briefed of the outage in the White House. 9-11 services have been restored in the region of phoenix after hours-long outage which began last night according to the department.
Some local hospitals have also seen minor disturbance in their patient record systems. The Paris olympics team has stated they have been affected in a minor way as well. Airports around the world are preparing for massive delays & cancellations throughout the day and ask passengers/flyers to be patient as systems continue to come back online. Thankfully Bus and train services have seen limited outage affects and are operational in regions like New York, which sees massive foot traffic on a day to day basis.
The outages will see a result in losses in the millions by many organizations forced to halt operations temporarily due to the outage. This was stated by Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity consultant who says the CrowdStrike update appears to be linked to its Falcon Sensor product.
Updates will be seen throughout the day as the outage continues to affect businesses all around the world and their systems continue to come back online.
