A global Windows outage, reportedly caused by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has impacted businesses including airlines, banks, media broadcasters, schools, and supermarkets, among others.
Not just a worldwide Blue Screen of Death for Windows users, the crash has seen over 1,000 flights cancelled, the BBC reports, citing aviation analytics firm Cirium. The firm told the BBC more than 3,200 departures are scheduled today, the busiest day for UK flights this year.
American Airlines posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday morning of “a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”
Budget airline Ryanair also posted an update on Friday morning to travellers letting them know of service disruption and advising that those checked in could still access their boarding passes.
Credit: Rachel Thompson / Mashable
Outside the UK, reports of handwritten tickets and long waits and technical difficulties have been circulating on social media.
Air traffic tracking company Flightradar is currently posting flight info on X (formerly Twitter).
The UK’s National Health Service was also affected, declared a “regional incident” with affected services including the NHS app and GPs. Emergency services continue to be available.
Train services in the UK including Southern Railway were also affected by the outage.
The issue is reported as related to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor, software designed to prevent cyber attacks.
“CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor,” the cybersecurity company wrote in an alert confirming the outage at 1:30 a.m. ET on Friday. Just before 6 a.m. ET, the company issued another statement, per the BBC:
“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 organisations ensure they’re communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers.”
“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 the BBC on Friday.
This story is developing…
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