CrowdStrike, Microsoft outage: Flights grounded, business stopped globally

A massive computer outage brought the world to a standstill.

It all involves an issue that blocked access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, The Associated Press reported.

CrowdStrike CEO releases new statement

Update 11:44 a.m. ET July 19: George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, the company responsible for the worldwide outage, has released another statement concerning global IT issues that have impacted nearly all aspects of life.

Kurtz wrote on X that “Our customers remain fully protected” despite the technical issues brought on by a system update.

FCC assesses how bad disruptions are

Update 10:56 a.m. ET July 19: The Federal Communications Commission is trying to figure out how bad the outages were according to a post on social media. In addition to flights being delayed or canceled, there have been 911 outages in several areas of the country.

Federal agencies are being impacted. Social Security offices were closed since the outage shut down several services. The SSA said there could be longer than normal wait times when calling and some of its online services are not available.

The Federal Reserve, however, said that it is operating normally.

“Critical Federal Reserve Systems are operating normally. We are monitoring the situation and working closely with industry and other government agencies to assess the situation,” the Fed told CNBC.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said officials are monitoring the air travel fallout and said that passengers who are affected should visit FlightRights.com to know what airlines must do to make things right.

FedEx: ‘substantial disruptions’

Update 10:20 a.m. ET July 19: FedEx said it has had “substantial disruptions” and that there could be delays for packages that were scheduled to be delivered on Friday, NBC News reported.

The company said customers should check the service alerts page for updates and track shipments on fedex.com.

UPS has a similar message that while the “network is operating and delivering in all areas, there is a potential for delivery delays due to a global technology outage.” The company said its Service Guarantee does not apply today due to the outage.

No alert has been posted for the USPS, but you can keep track of any issues here.

President briefed

Update 9:47 a.m. ET July 19: President Joe Bien has been briefed on the outage, The New York Times reported. Several governmental cybersecurity experts are already meeting at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. Administration officials are ““in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities. His team is engaged across the interagency to get sector by sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed.”

The president is in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, as he self-isolates after being diagnosed with COVID-19, CNN reported.

Delta flights begin to resume

Update 8:37 a.m. ET July 19: Delta said it has resumed some flight departures Friday morning, but more delays and cancellations can be expected.

CrowdStrike CEO speaks

Update 7:57 a.m. ET July 19: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told the “Today” show in the first interview since the outage began that the company is “deeply sorry for the impact we caused.”

He said the issues have been resolved or are being resolved and impacted systems are recovering.

Reconnection may take awhile

Update 7:53 a.m. ET July 19: A cybersecurity expert told CNBC that it may take a while to get everything back up and running.

“It turns out that because the endpoints have crashed — the Blue Screen of Death — they cannot be updated remotely and this the problem must be solved manually, endpoint by endpoint. This is expected to be a process that will take days,” Omer Grossman, CIO at CyberArk told CNBC Friday morning.

Grossman called the global outage “very unprecedented.”

UK government emergency meeting

Update 7:30 a.m. ET July 19: The British government held an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the outage, CNN reported.

“We recognise the impact this is having on services and the Government is working closely with the respective sectors and industries on this issue, which is affecting services not only across the UK but also globally,” a government spokesperson said.

The new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not chair the meeting as he has “bilaterals with President Zelensky and Cabinet” but was being kept apprised of the situation, CNN reported.

Paris Olympics impacted

Update 7:15 a.m. ET July 19: The Paris Olympic organizing committee said the global outage has impacted its system, one week before the games’ opening ceremonies, The New York Times reported. “Paris 2024′s technical teams are fully mobilized to limit the impact and we have activated our contingency plans to ensure the continuation of our operations,” the Times reported.

The outage did not affect ticket sales, Reuters reported.

“Paris 2024′s ticketing systems have been unaffected. The operations around the preparation of venues is continuing normally, and work schedules are not at risk. The torch relay is continuing along its route as normal,” a spokesperson told Reuters.

Security checks were being done manually with officials using a printed list of names and the accreditation desk was not open.

“I’ve arrived in Paris this morning and went to get my accreditation validated and have been told no,” Sky Sports New Zealand journalist Wilson Catton said, according to Reuters. “They can’t issue any accreditation or anything for I don’t know how long.”

White House is aware of the issues; FAA monitoring

Update 7:08 a.m. ET July 19: The White House has been alerted about the outage.

“We’re aware of the incident and are looking into the issue and impacts,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson told CNN.

The FAA is keeping a close eye on the impacts of the outage.

As of 7 a.m. there have been more than 500 flight delays in the U.S., The New York Times reported.

Hospital cancels elective surgeries

Update 6:54 a.m. ET July 19: A hospital in Germany has canceled all elective procedures and outpatient services because of computer issues. NBC News reported that patient care and emergency services at University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein were not affected.

In the U.K. general practitioners are having “disruptions” according to the British National Health Service. Offices cannot get schedules or records and receptionists are using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions.

“We have no access to patient clinical records so are unable to book appointments or provide information,” Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse in Northern England said according to the AP. “This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority.”

Some grocery stores in the U.K. are not able to process credit cards so they’re only able to do cash transactions.

Flight status updates

Update 6:43 a.m. ET July 19: Here is a roundup of domestic airline companies that are impacted by the outage:

American Airlines: A ground stop had been issued but the airline says that it has “safely reestablished” operations.

United Airlines: Groundstop, company has issued waivers to allow changes to travel plans.

Delta Air Lines: Flights grounded, according to CNN.

Allegiant Airlines/SunCountry: Issues with booking, check-in and trip-managing, CNN reported.

Frontier Airlines: The systems are being restored. Flights can be rebooked on the next available flight at no charge. Customers can cancel with credit for a future flight or can cancel with a refund.

Original story: Microsoft posted a series of tweets explaining what the company is trying to do to correct the situation, writing, “We’re working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion.”

The FAA said that United, American, Delta and Allegiant airlines are grounded, the AP reported.

The issue was caused by CrowdStrike, whose CEO George Kurtz said that it was 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 cyber attack.”

What is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity firm and one of its clients is Microsoft Windows.

Its primary program is CrowdStrike Falcon, a cybersecurity platform that large companies, global banks, healthcare, energy companies and the government use.

The company, on its website, says, “CrowdStrike secures the most critical areas of risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data – to keep customers ahead of today’s adversaries and stop breaches.”

It adds that Falcon “leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence on evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities – all through a single, lightweight agent.”

Check back for more on this developing story.

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