Major IT outage takes out banks, airlines and businesses across the world

Businesses worldwide on Friday are reporting IT outages, including Windows “blue screen of death” errors on their computers, in what has already become one of the most widespread IT disruptions in recent years. The outage — that many security professionals are attributing to a CrowdStike update — has affected companies across various sectors, from airlines, banks, food chains and brokerage houses, to news organizations, and railway networks. The travel industry seems to be the most affected.

“We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” a Microsoft spokesperson told ProWellTech in a statement.

Airlines and airports around the world, from the U.S., Germany, U.K, Singapore, Australia, India, Taiwan, China and Japan, are reporting problems with check-in systems, and delays.

In the U.K., the London Stock Exchange reported facing disruptions in their services. Several doctors in the U.K said on X that the outage had hit the National Health Service’s clinical computer system that contains medical records and is used for scheduling appointments.

And in the U.S., some 911 and non-emergency call centers seem to be affected. A post by Alaska State Troopers said many such call centers were “not working correctly across the State of Alaska.”

UK news broadcaster Sky News faced trouble broadcasting live this morning due to the outage, the firm’s executive chairman David Rhodes tweeted. The New Zealand Herald reported that banking services in the country were affected by the issue, too.

Many customers have reported being unable to restart their computers due to the issue. The outage came shortly after Microsoft confirmed service problems with its Microsoft 365 apps late on Thursday, which affected several airlines including Delta and United. Microsoft’s services status page says the issues are being resolved.

Notably, the outages don’t seem to be the result of a cyber attack. Several businesses and security experts have pointed fingers at the security firm CrowdStrike, and Australian energy company AGL outright blamed an update from the firm. The firm’s software is used widely across enterprises for managing security on Windows devices and servers.

A post on CrowdStrike’s support forums acknowledged the issue, saying the company had received reports of crashes related to a content update. CrowdStrike identified the crash reports it had received to the Falcon Sensor, a cloud-based security service that offers “real-time threat detection, simplified management, and proactive threat hunting.”

CrowdStrike counts nearly 60% of Fortune 500 companies and more than half of the Fortune 1,000 among its clients, per its website. Its services are deployed by eight of the top 10 financial services firms and an equal number of leading tech companies. It also has deep and wide presence across healthcare and manufacturing sectors, serving six and seven of the top 10 companies in those industries, respectively.

The security firm didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A moderator of the CrowdStrike subreddit said the company was aware of “widespread reports” of blue screen errors on Windows devices across multiple versions of its software. The firm was investigating the cause, the message read.

Crowdstrike’s shares were down more than 20% in premarket trading on Friday. CrowdStrike had a market cap of $83.48 billion at Thursday’s closure.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Ram Iyer contributed to this report.