A Microsoft global outage has wreaked havoc across America, locking countless individuals out of their bank accounts, causing hospital cancelations and even grounding flights.

The notorious Blue Screen of Death is popping up everywhere, from banks to supermarkets and media outlets, causing widespread panic and confusion. All United, Delta and American Airlines flights were grounded amid the chaos.

Microsoft has issued a statement on the issue. “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said on X this morning. “We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue.”

Crowdstrike has also issued a statement on the ongoing IT outage. CEO George Kurtz said on X: “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 IT outage is causing huge crowds at airports
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PA)

“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.”

ABC News has broadcasted that air traffic controllers are being instructed to inform pilots mid-flight about the airlines’ severe communication breakdowns. Delta has now resumed some flight departures, but warned of major delays.

United Airlines also announced they are “resuming some flights” after being impacted by the global CrowdStrike issue. In a statement, they said: “A third-party software outage impacted computer systems worldwide, including at United. We are resuming some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday.

“We have issued a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans via United.com or the United app.” The announcement comes after American Airlines, United and Delta issued a global ground stop on all flights.

The crisis even reached emergency services, with police and ambulance providers across Phoenix and New Hampshire being forced to dispatch cars manually. 911 dispatchers were able to take calls but were writing down information on paper to share with first responders.

Cybersecurity experts at Crowdstrike attribute the chaos to a glitch in “content deployment”. The National Cyber Security Coordinator in Australia has downplayed fears of a cyber-attack, stating that the current outage seems to be due to a technical glitch, “and outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Tamara Sharf has taken to X to express her concerns about the chaos the outage is causing in hospitals. She detailed the critical situation, saying management systems are collapsing. Her post read: “Rumor has it EMR is down at major hospitals in NY and CA. We are locked out of Cerner here and I heard from a friend in LA that Epic is down at their hospital. 911 outage here too apparently. Is it really that widespread? What are folks experiencing?”

Eleanor Tolbert

Senator asks U.S. Department of Defense for briefing on internet outage

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt sent a letter to the acting chief information officer of the Department of Defense on Friday, requesting a briefing on the IT issue that’s caused the global outages.

He wrote: “A single point of failure in a cybersecurity strategy has proven time and time again to be a threat to our national security.”

He called for a complete re-examination of cyber safeguards.

A Department of Defense spokesperson said in a statement it was aware of the issues and personnel were monitoring their networks.

“For operational security reasons, we do not comment on the status of our network operations, information systems or operations to assess cyber threats,” the statement read.

William Walker

Huge global tech blunder sees CrowdStrike boss lose $322m as firm sheds billions

George Kurtz, the cofounder and CEO of CrowdStrike the company behind a worldwide IT meltdown today, lost nearly $322 million of his personal fortune, as his firm accepted responsibility for the outage that halted airports and businesses around the world.

The Texas-based cybersecurity firm powers for some of the world’s top companies and global financial institutions. The company issued an apology on Friday, July 19, after a faulty update affected Windows customers affecting airlines, airports, broadcasters, the NHS, train services and investment platforms.

(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
  • Read the full story here.
Eleanor Tolbert

Border crossings in the U.S. are delayed

People looking to enter and exit the U.S. have been delayed during the global IT outage.

Pedestrians were waiting three hours to cross at the San Ysidro Port of Entry Friday morning. Even those with U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System posted on X that some of its employees who live in Tijuana, Mexico, were unable to make it to work on Friday.

Windsor Police at the Canada border also warned of delays at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.

Eleanor Tolbert

Billboards in Time Square go dark during global IT outage

Videos have been circulating online of several billboards in Times Square powered off during the outage.

Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, said a “handful” of the more than 100 billboards in the tourist destination were offline around noon Friday.

“We’re almost back to business as usual,” he told the AP. He said it’s not clear whether the blackouts were related to the global tech outage or part of regularly scheduled maintenance or other issues as the billboards are independently owned and operated.

Eleanor Tolbert

Texas and New York face disruptions in driver’s license offices

Texas had to close all of its driver’s license offices across the state Friday, while New York’s Department of Motor Vehicles couldn’t process transactions online or in it’s offices.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which operates the driver’s license offices in most counties, said in a statement that “there is no current estimate” on when the offices will reopen.

In New York, some systems had been restored and that could begin performing online transactions while others were still offline. At least three DMV offices were closed.

Eleanor Tolbert

New York courts faced delayed proceedings, including that of Harvey Weinstein

Courts in New York faced disruptions Friday from the global internet outage. The delays were attributed to computer problems.

The criminal proceedings for Harvey Weinstein, who is charged with rape, started 90 minutes late in Manhattan due to the disruptions to the court and corrections computer systems.

Eleanor Tolbert

Starbucks mobile orders are down

Starbucks has reported its online ordering system is not working amid the IT outage.

Upon opening the app, customers are met with a message stating: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Mobile Ordering is currently unavailable. Please visit one of our stores and place your order with a barista.”

Jaci Anderson, the company’s director of communications, told NBC News: “We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible.”

Eleanor Tolbert

Customers likely won’t see the effect of the outage in stores

Several retailers have noted that they have been impacted by the global IT outage, but those problem areas are not customer facing.

Walgreens told The Washington Post the company has “minimal disruption” to its operations while its “stores remain open and able to serve our patients and customers.” CVS Health Corp. also said its drugstores and pharmacies were operating normally.

Macy’s stores and its affiliates Bloomingdales and Blue Mercury continue to be operational for customers as well.

Home Depot has been impacted, but its stores and websites are working while the company’s “teams are working rapidly to work around the impacts.”

Kroger and it’s stores are not experiencing a major impact as well.

Eleanor Tolbert

IT outage could cost global economy trillions of dollars

Experts have warned the Microsoft outage could cost the global economy trillions.

The U.S. Sun reported the estimated global cost of internet disruption for 20 hours is $24 billion. While the bug has been fixed, companies and organizations that use Microsoft systems are experiencing a ripple effect from the outage.

BCS, the Chartered institute for IT, said it could take days or even weeks to fully recover.

William Walker

Incredible time lapse shows skies empty over US after crippling global IT glitch

A 12-hour timelapse has captured the dramatic moment America’s skies cleared as a global IT outage forced major airlines to ground flights.

American Airlines, United, and Delta were hit by an extraordinary system failure that threw travel plans into disarray globally. The aviation behemoths announced a worldwide stoppage of all flights due to “communication issues” early Friday morning, leading to over 1,000 flight cancellations across the U. S.

((Image: @us_stormwatch / Instagram))
  • For the full story click here.
Eleanor Tolbert

Arizona early primary voting affected by outage

Some voting locations in Maricopa County, Arizona, have been affected by the global IT outage, causing limitations in early primary voting.

The county released a statement on X, saying: “Due to the global tech outage, Maricopa County Elections is also experiencing an outage at some voting locations. Please visit Loctions.Maricopa.Vote for the most up-to-date information about locations that are open and their hours of operation.”

Eleanor Tolbert

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg hopeful systems will be more normal by tomorrow

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNBC News the bug from CrowdStrike has been resolved, but the issues still being seen are a ripple effect. Airlines are still the most affected, while certain ports and public transportation are seeing smaller problems.

“I think we’re going to continue to see a number of spot issues across different systems as things move back toward normal during the course of the day.”

He continued: “The challenge is, we have such tightly wound and interdependent systems that these ripple effects can carry on, but it does seem, as of now, hour by hour, the issues are being addressed, resolved and smoothed out.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll get to something much more resembling normal by the time we get to tomorrow.”

Eleanor Tolbert

U.S. cyber defense agency warns hackers are taking advantage of the outage

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency released a statement saying it’s working with CrowdStrike and other national and international partners to assess the impacts of the outage.

While the outage was not due to a cyber attack, the organization noted it has “observed threat actors taking advantage of this incident for phishing and other malicious activity.”

“CISA urges organizations and individuals to remain vigilant and only follow instructions from legitimate sources. CISA recommends organizations to remind their employees to avoid clicking on phishing emails or suspicious links.

Eleanor Tolbert

FAA lifts ground stop orders on Delta, United

The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted the ground stop orders for Delta and United airlines.

American Airlines said it has resolved the issues affecting its operations, and “as of 5 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation.”

Southwest and Jet Blue said they did not experience system-wide delays or cancelations.

Eleanor Tolbert

Microsoft CEO releases statement on outage

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella released his first statement on the outage Friday.

“CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems globally. We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online.”

Eleanor Tolbert

CrowdStrike CEO’s net worth revealed after global IT outage

George Kurtz, founder and CEO of CrowdStrike, has an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2024, according to Forbes. He currently maintains a 5% stake in his company which racked in $2.24 billion last year.

The 53-year-old’s wealth landed him at number #1033 of Forbes’ billionaires list. He also secured an 8 on the self-made scale and a 1 on the philanthropic scale.

This is not the company’s first controversy. In 2016, they became known for aiding the Democratic National Convention after a 2016 hack that resulted in leaked emails.

That situation made the company an enemy of former president Donald Trump, who accused it of having ties with Ukraine. The investigation from Robert Mueller identified Russian operatives as the root of the problem, which actually favored Trump.

Eleanor Tolbert

Television stations are recovering after overnight disruptions

The global outage prevented some television news stations from airing overnight and early Friday morning.

Several affiliates of Scripps News were unable to air local news reports. KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, aired national news network Scripps News instead of local news until about 5:35 a.m..

IT teams worked to resolve the problem throughout the night. Scripps spokesman Michael Perry told AP News that as of 8 a.m. EDT, 90% of stations were able to air local news.

Eleanor Tolbert

CrowdStrike CEO shares where people can find latest updates on outage

In an updated statement, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz shared where people can find the latest updates on the outage.

“For the latest information that we will continuously update, please refer to the CrowdStrike website, my posts on LinkedIn, and my posts on X. I will continue to provide updates to our community and the industry as they become available.”

Eleanor Tolbert

IT experts say recovery from the outage could ”take days and weeks’

The impact of the global IT outage could “take days or weeks” to recover from, says BCS, the Chartered institute for IT. The professional body of IT has called on the government to track, record and assess the outages to build up our national resilience to such critical issues.

While the problem has been identified and resolved, it’s unclear how long it will take for everything to get back to normal.

Adam Leon Smith, a BCS Fellow and a cyber security expert, said: “In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly, but because it has to be applied to so many computers around the world, that may take longer than it sounds. But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting into blue screens and endless loops it may be difficult to restore, and that could take days and weeks.

He also explains the outage could have been worse, as Microsoft isn’t the primary system for mission-critical systems.

“We have to look at the complex supply chain infrastructure that’s providing the systems, services and products we rely on every day. Software should be a priority when we are planning from a national resilience point of view. The government needs to start tracking when things like this happen – even lesser incidents. We need to start understanding the nation’s ability to respond to such events.”

Eleanor Tolbert

FedEx, UPS warn of delays are possible after “substantial disruptions”

FedEx said it has experienced disruptions throughout its network due to the Microsoft outage.

“Contingency plans have been activated to mitigate impacts but potential delays are possible for package deliveries with a delivery commitment of July 19, 2024,” it said in the statement.

UPS said the outage has also affected some of its systems, which could lead to potential delays. At this time, however, the company’s airlines and drivers are still “operating effectively,” a representative told CBS MoneyWatch.

These potential delivery issues could impact items purchased during Amazon Prime Day, which wrapped up Wednesday. It’s one of the biggest online shopping events of the year, with consumers purchasing more than 200 million items and spending a record $14.2 billion this year.

Eleanor Tolbert

Texas hospitals suspend service “until further notice”

Harris Health System, which runs many hospitals and clinics in Houston, Texas, has suspended certain hospital visits Friday “until further notice.”

Dialysis services remain open at the Harris Health Quentin Mease Health Center.

“All other Harris Health outpatient clinic appointments and elective hospital procedures are being canceled today and will be rescheduled when the information systems issues are resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working with our IT teams and consultants to remedy this outage.”

Eleanor Tolbert

CrowdStrike CEO says the company is “deeply sorry”

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz spoke with NBC’s Today Show, saying the company is “deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our company.”

The issue has now been resolved and systems are recovering, but he said “it could take some time for some systems that won’t automatically recover.”

Eleanor Tolbert

Maryland courts, offices and facilities will be closed Friday

All Maryland courts are closed to the public Friday due to the Microsoft outage. They will still be operational for emergency matters, however.

According to a news release: “Due to the worldwide Microsoft outage, all Maryland courts, offices, and facilities will be closed to the public today but will remain open for emergency matters. All clerks’ offices are closed.”

The Maryland Department of Emergency Management is activating it’s emergency operations center as well.

Eleanor Tolbert

Virginia systems appear to be operating

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin released a statement Friday saying the state’s health, safety and transportation systems appear to be operational after an assessment of the outages.

He wrote: “However, airlines continue to experience significant disruptions. The assessment determined that government administrative functions are experiencing disruptions, and we are coordinating with local, regional and federal authorities and private sector critical infrastructure partners in order to reestablish normal operations.”

He continued saying Virginians may experience delays but should remain patient during this time.

William Walker

More than £9bn wiped off Crowdstrike’s value after huge IT outage

More than $12.5bn – about £9bn – has been wiped off the value of Crowdstrike after today’s huge outage.

Shares in the company at the centre of the global problem opened almost 15% down on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.

Wedbush Securities’ tech expert Dan Ives said: “Crowdstrike has a strong brand and global marketing presence which will need to go into next gear over the coming weeks and months to curtail some damage from this.”

William Walker

Baltimore Washington International Airport hit by IT outage as flights cancelled

Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is the latest to be affected by the mass global IT outage.

According to reports as of 9.45am about 2 percent of flights have been cancelled, totalling 9, while 20 percent of flights have been delayed. This represents 75 in total.

Southwest doesn’t appear to be impacted.

Scarlett O’Toole

Airport officials urge patience

Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport has issued a warning to passengers.

Staff members have been handing out bottles of water to travelers who are standing in line waiting to rebook flights. According to FlightAware.com, 75 departures — about 20% of those scheduled — were delayed, and nine were canceled by about 10am ET.

Scarlett O’Toole

Joe Biden briefed on outage

President Joe Biden has been briefed on the outage.

A White House spokesperson has released the following statement on the outage: “The president has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and his team is 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.”

Scarlett O’Toole

Passengers miss flights due to check-in issues

Passengers have missed flights due to the inability to check-in baggage at airports across the globe.

Over in London, UK, Nicky Walters had been waiting for four hours to check in her bags, only to be told she had missed her flight. She said: “The flight was put back to 11am and the last message I had was that the flight was boarding – who is on it though?

“I’ve been waiting to check luggage in, but we’ve been told the scanners are down and so we’ve just been sitting here for the last four hours. There’s been a distinct lack of information from Vueling. I know it’s not their fault, but it would be nice to be kept in the loop as much as possible.”

Scarlett O’Toole

Long lines in Portland airport

Portland airport has encouraged travelers to get in touch with their airlines if they are traveling amid the mass IT outage.

Long queues have been forming at the airport as passengers await updates. One video on social media showed travelers standing in crowds amid the severe delays.

One person wrote: “SYSTEM OUTAGE‼️: The line for@Delta and @AmericanAir this morning… numerous delays at PDX after flights were grounded from the IT outage. Impacted airlines include American, Delta, and United.

“@PortOfPortland recommends getting in touch with your airline if you’re traveling today.”