CrowdStrike Outage: What We Know As Microsoft Accounts Down Worldwide

A major IT outage caused by a problem at the U.S. cyber-security firm CrowdStrike led to chaos for businesses around the world on Friday.

The global software issue forced many banks, airlines and broadcasters to go offline, and caused many Windows computers to crash suddenly.

A software update implemented by CrowdStrike appears to have triggered the system problems that were felt right around the world, affecting people's ability to log on to devices and accounts.

Microsoft warned of a major "degradation" to its services, but said later on Friday that the problems had been fixed.

George Kurtz, the president and CEO of CrowdStrike, said on Friday morning that the issue had been "identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed."

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Kurtz said: "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 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."

Microsoft had reported that many customers were unable to access various apps and services including Microsoft Teams. Other products affected included Microsoft 365 admin center, Microsoft Fabric and PowerBI, the company said.

"We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike. Customers that are continuing to experience issues should reach out to CrowdStrike for additional assistance," Microsoft said.

"Additionally, we're continuing to investigate additional mitigation options for customers and will share more information as it becomes known."

In the U.S. several major airlines including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded flights on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

United said in a statement: "A third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United. While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations."

U.S.-based Frontier Airlines also said it had been affected. "During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted," the company said on X, formerly Twitter.

Meanwhile, Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, advised passengers to arrive at airports three hours in advance of flights to avoid disruptions, and said the issue was beyond the airline's control.

Many airports across the world resorted to checking in passengers manually and providing them with handwritten boarding passes, leading to reports of widespread delays.

Emergency service call lines were also reportedly down for periods of time across a number of U.S. states, including Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

In Australia, a number of the country's largest banks were impacted. The website Downdetector, which monitors outages, said that the National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Bendigo Bank, Suncorp Bank and others had been affected.

Self check-out and digital payment services were also reported to have crashed at many shops across the country.

John Adams, an Australian economic commentator, wrote on X: "The digital payment system in Australia has crashed! Some shops such as Coles are only accepting physical Australian dollars! This is why physical cash is essential to economic freedom."

Meanwhile, the British broadcaster Sky News was temporarily unable to broadcast live on Friday morning, with viewers presented with an error message stating: "We apologize for the interruption to this broadcast. We hope to restore the transmission of Sky News shortly."

The British GP appointment system also stopped working. Newsweek was told that doctors were unable to access patients' notes or prescribe electronically.

The London Stock Exchange issued a warning stating that its Regulatory News Service was experiencing a "third party global technical issues," preventing news from being published. It added that technical teams were working to restore the service and that there had been no impact to securities trading or other services on the stock exchange.

Separately, the Paris Olympics' organizing committee said that its IT operation had been impacted, just a week before the Games are set to begin.

"We have activated contingency plans in order to continue operations," it said in a statement.

Newsweek has contacted Microsoft for comment.