Airlines, banks, health care have operations disrupted in global IT outage

A global tech outage was disrupting operations in multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters off-air and everything from banking to health care hit by system problems.

According to an alert sent by global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, the company’s Falcon Sensor software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the “blue screen of death.”

The company told NBC News that the outage is related to an issue in the most recent update, which is now being rolled back. The problem crashed Windows machines and servers, sending them into a loop of recovery so that they couldn’t restart.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” company CEO George Kurtz said in a message posted on social media. “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.”

The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing it. The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, as well as airlines.

Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

Several airlines affected

In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded. Travellers at Los Angeles International Airport slept on a jetway floor, using backpacks and other luggage for pillows, due to a delayed United flight to Dulles International Airport early on Friday. Airlines, railways and television stations in the United Kingdom were being disrupted by the computer issues.

Airline traffic was especially affected, though the impacts were variable. A spokesperson from Toronto’s Pearson Airport told CBC News the impacts varied “airline to airline.”

Porter Airlines, which operates flights across Canada and to some U.S. locations, said all flights would be cancelled until at least noon ET on Friday. The company said just after 6 a.m. that its call centre agents did not have access to reservation or rebooking information, and it’s directing customers to its website for updates.

“Any passengers needing to cancel travel plans as a direct result of the systems issue will be offered refunds,” said Porter. “Normal flight change fees are also being waived.”

Montreal-Trudeau…