Global internet outage - Disruption to airlines, banks, media and other businesses worldwide - July 19, 2024

[imstilla.grandma]

The outage, which also took down the London Stock Exchange, has been linked to a faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The company handles the security of many Windows PCs and services around the world. In a statement on Friday morning, Crowdstrike said the issue had been "identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed."

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack," the company added.

The last time there was an internet outage this widespread was when a service called Fastly went down in 2021. It's a reminder of how much of the internet is underpinned by shared infrastructure, which leaves it vulnerable to widespread issues such as this. The share price of many companies took a nose dive following Friday's outage, but it's also affected many people on an individual level, from disrupting vacation plans to preventing access to emergency services.

Across the US, state troopers were reporting that 911 lines were down, starting in Alaska. Unconfirmed reports suggest that some lines in Minnesota, Arizona, Indiana Ohio and New Hampshire have also been hit. Many people were reporting issues through the Down Detector website, with outages appearing to peak around midnight PT/3 a.m. ET. If you live in one of the affected states, check with your local state trooper or police department for alternative emergency numbers.

Microsoft and CrowdStrike Outage Explained: Airport Chaos, 911 Lines Down and More

Delta, Americans Airlines and United have resumed flights, although there are likely to be ongoing delays and cancelations due to an outage sparked by a faulty cybersecurity update.

www.cnet.com

 

[TexLil]

This is no reflection on you for posting this (Thank you!) but I'm quite frustrated by the articles calling this a Microsoft/Windows problem.

I have no love for Microsoft, but this is clearly Crowdstrike's fault. They've admitted it is.

Agree and edited.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

That's the same with everything, though. People don't know how the sausage gets made. jmo

Yep. Sausage for sure.

 

[dalsglen]

My mum had an NHS telephone appointment at midday today, and that was also received without any issues. The UK seems to be less affected than some countries; I think Crowdstrike is less widely used here.

Oh I dunno, today was supposed to be the day that we could buy our tickets for the first match of the season (Scotland). Ticket site is down. I'm sure I'll survive if I miss that through lol

 

[Eli9]

Microsoft outage LIVE: Is your airport among the worst-affected

Follow MailOnline LIVE blog as outage sparks chaos across the globe as TV channels, airports and banks are knocked offline.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[nhmemorymaker]

This is no reflection on you for posting this (Thank you!) but I'm quite frustrated by the articles calling this a Microsoft/Windows problem.

I have no love for Microsoft, but this is clearly Crowdstrike's fault. They've admitted it is.

Totally upfront. AND they do have the fix under control too
As one posted back thread ...why they didn't plan this fix over a weekend is strange.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

CrowdStrike CEO: ‘We’re deeply sorry’​

“We have to go back and see what happened here. But if there’s a negative interaction with the way some of these operating systems work — in this particular case, it was, it was only a Microsoft operating system that was impacted — you’ll see a reaction like this,” he said.
- Karen Gilchrest

British hospital declares critical incident in the wake of IT outage​

Britain’s Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford has declared a “critical incident” due to external IT issues that are affecting its services, as well as Varian — the IT system that it deploys for radiotherapy treatments

“We have been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD [blue screen of death) and get stuck in a restarting state. We approximate impact started around 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July,” Microsoft said in an update at 5:40 a.m. ET.

A Microsoft error screen known as the “blue screen of death”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/19/latest-live-updates-on-a-major-it-outage-spreading-worldwide.html

 

[ch_13]

This is no reflection on you for posting this (Thank you!) but I'm quite frustrated by the articles calling this a Microsoft/Windows problem.

I have no love for Microsoft, but this is clearly Crowdstrike's fault. They've admitted it is.

Although Microsoft did have an unrelated outage on their Azure cloud platform just a few hours before the CrowdStrike issues, which I think caused some people to conflate the two. The MS outage resulted in some flight cancellations on Thursday as well as other problems. MS Office apps were also affected.

Microsoft 365 remains 'degraded' as Azure outage resolved

Central US region is back in business but Office apps still in trouble

www.theregister.com

This would have been big news on its own, I think it's the worst Azure outage ever. But of course it's been dwarfed by the CrowdStrike problems.

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Crowdstrike issued a statement to its website shortly after 4pm AEST, saying the crashes are related to the "Falcon sensor".

The Falcon sensor is installed on business computers to gather security data.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/massive-outage-hits-companies-around-the-world/news-story/e02375a976a08b45e72e64040fe14362

Looks like Australia being hit quite hard

Your articles mentions heavily hit Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India,...
and US and UK.
But sounds like UK not so bad.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

The company then offered a workaround to those affected by the outage.

"If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, the following steps can be used to workaround this issue,” it said.

“Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory. Locate the file matching "C-00000291*sys" file, right click and rename it to "C-00000291*.renamed". Boot the host normally.”

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/money/technology/explainer-why-is-the-global-it-outage-hap

 

[nhmemorymaker]

Although Microsoft did have an unrelated outage on their Azure cloud platform just a few hours before the CrowdStrike issues, which I think caused some people to conflate the two. The MS outage resulted in some flight cancellations on Thursday as well as other problems. MS Office apps were also affected.

Microsoft 365 remains 'degraded' as Azure outage resolved

Central US region is back in business but Office apps still in trouble

www.theregister.com

This would have been big news on its own, I think it's the worst Azure outage ever. But of course it's been dwarfed by the CrowdStrike problems.

Thanks for that update on Azure...can see how reporting combined.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Hopefully nothing very serious results from this, but maybe that's inevitable, sadly.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

 

[ChatteringBirds]

On a lighter note, a few hours ago my (Android) phone actually froze on a white screen, during normal usage, until I forced it to restart. I'm curious if this could be why. Did anyone notice anything on their phone or other personal devices?

 

[dotr]

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Over 1,000 flights had been cancelled within, into, or our of the U.S. by early Friday morning and more than 2,000 others were delayed, according to the the flight tracking service, FlightAware. Globally, more than 21,000 flights were delayed early Friday, and that number was expected to rise

In Europe, Lufthansa, KLM and SAS Airlines reported disruptions. Switzerland's largest airport, in Zurich, said planes were not being allowed to land, according to CBS News partner network BBC News.

In India, at the country's primary airport in Delhi, everything was being done manually. No electric check-in terminals were functioning and gate information was being updated by hand on a white board, the BBC reported

"It turns out that because the endpoints have crashed — the Blue Screen of Death — they cannot be updated remotely and the problem must be solved manually, endpoint by endpoint. This is expected to be a process that will take days," Grossman said

Microsoft outages caused by CrowdStrike software glitch paralyze airlines, other businesses. Here's what to know.

What to know as banks, airlines and other Microsoft clients grapple with global outages due to a CrowdStrike software issue.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Romulus]

Namus is out!!!

 

[nhmemorymaker]

On a lighter note, a few hours ago my (Android) phone actually froze on a white screen, during normal usage, until I forced it to restart. I'm curious if this could be why. Did anyone notice anything on their phone or other personal devices?

Well, the outages are only Android, no Macs affected.

 

[Michael_Rivers]

From all of this, a comment I'll remember from the experts is Microsoft's "Have you tried switching it off and on again?"

Microsoft IT outage live updates: Worldwide travel and banking hit after cybersecurity update causes IT chaos

The boss of Crowdstrike says it "could be some time" before systems are fully back after a software bug triggered Microsoft outages.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Travelers wait in Terminal 1 for check-in at Hamburg Airport, in Hamburg, Germany, Friday July 19, 2024 as a widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday

At Hong Kong’s airport, Yvonne Lee, 24, said she only found out her flight to Phuket in Thailand was postponed to Saturday when she arrived at the airport, saying the way it was handled would “affect the image of Hong Kong’s airport very much.”

A disturbing reminder of vulnerability
“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.

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we’ve come to rely on at critical times are not going to be available. Hospitals, for example, will struggle to sort out appointments and those who need care may not get it.

“There are going to be deaths because of this. It’s inevitable,’’ Bore said. “We’ve got so many systems tied up with this.”

In India, Hong Kong and Thailand, many airlines were forced to manually check in passengers. An airline in Kenya was also reporting disruption.

Australia bears brunt of outages in Asia
While the outages were being experienced worldwide, Australia appeared to be severely affected by the issue. Disruption reported on the site DownDetector included the banks NAB, Commonwealth and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as internet and phone providers such as Telstra.

Massive Internet Outage: Airlines, Businesses Hit by Global Technology Disruption - VINnews

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — 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...

vinnews.com