Microsoft global outage hits flights, banks, media outlets & companies

Working closely with CrowdStrike to bring systems back online: Microsoft CEO Nadella

A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued — and escalated.

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that the company is working with CrowdStrike to bring back its systems online after a global outage.

Long lines formed at airports in the US, Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travellers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours.

Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.

DownDetector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.