Microsoft IT outage: The key moments on day of global chaos

Airlines, rail companies, banks and the NHS were among those affected by the outage.

The outage has sparked chaos around the world: Stansted in the UK was one of many airports affected; a Windows ‘Blue Screen of Death’ message in China, a Liquorland store was shut in Australia, and Hamburg airport was also hit. (AP, Reuters, Alamy

A global IT outage caused major infrastructure across the world to grind to a halt on Friday.

Institutions ranging from airports to GP surgeries suffered disruption after their computer systems were taken offline.

CrowdStrike, the firm at the centre of the outage, said it was “deeply sorry” for the incident but warned it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.

What happened?
CrowdStrike confirmed the issue was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts”. In other words, this was a flaw in a software update pushed out to customers using Microsoft Windows PCs, which crashed.

CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, providing antivirus and cyberattack prevention tools to thousands of businesses.

What was affected?
The NHS was at the centre of the outage in England, as it caused disruption “in the majority of GP practices” as well as pharmacies. Several ambulance services reported increased pressure and higher call volumes after GP services were affected, while some NHS external providers also faced system issues.

Large queues formed at airports across the UK as airlines reported being unable to process passengers and resorted to manually checking in customers.

Meanwhile, Sky News was briefly knocked off air and many retailers reported issues with taking digital payments.

How long will it take to resolve?
George Kurtz, chief executive of CrowdStrike, said a fix had been deployed for the bug, but added it could take “some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover”.

Given the scale of devices and businesses impacted, it could take several days for every impacted computer to be fixed and returned to normal use, particularly at smaller firms with fewer resources.

Essentially, signs of disruption are likely to remain throughout Friday and into the weekend.

What did Crowdstrike and Microsoft say?
Kurtz said “it is our mission to make sure that every customer is fully recovered, and we’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were, and we’ll continue to protect them and keep the bad guys out of their systems”.

Microsoft chief communications officer Frank Shaw said: “Earlier today, a Crowdstrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of Windows systems globally. We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”

Airlines, rail companies, banks and the NHS were among those affected by the outage.

The outage has sparked chaos around the world: Stansted in the UK was one of many airports affected; a Windows ‘Blue Screen of Death’ message in China, a Liquorland store was shut in Australia, and Hamburg airport was also hit. (AP, Reuters, Alamy

A global IT outage caused major infrastructure across the world to grind to a halt on Friday.

Institutions ranging from airports to GP surgeries suffered disruption after their computer systems were taken offline.

CrowdStrike, the firm at the centre of the outage, said it was “deeply sorry” for the incident but warned it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.

What happened?
CrowdStrike confirmed the issue was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts”. In other words, this was a flaw in a software update pushed out to customers using Microsoft Windows PCs, which crashed.

CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, providing antivirus and cyberattack prevention tools to thousands of businesses.

What was affected?
The NHS was at the centre of the outage in England, as it caused disruption “in the majority of GP practices” as well as pharmacies. Several ambulance services reported increased pressure and higher call volumes after GP services were affected, while some NHS external providers also faced system issues.

Large queues formed at airports across the UK as airlines reported being unable to process passengers and resorted to manually checking in customers.

Meanwhile, Sky News was briefly knocked off air and many retailers reported issues with taking digital payments.

How long will it take to resolve?
George Kurtz, chief executive of CrowdStrike, said a fix had been deployed for the bug, but added it could take “some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover”.

Given the scale of devices and businesses impacted, it could take several days for every impacted computer to be fixed and returned to normal use, particularly at smaller firms with fewer resources.

Essentially, signs of disruption are likely to remain throughout Friday and into the weekend.

What did Crowdstrike and Microsoft say?
Kurtz said “it is our mission to make sure that every customer is fully recovered, and we’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were, and we’ll continue to protect them and keep the bad guys out of their systems”.

Microsoft chief communications officer Frank Shaw said: “Earlier today, a Crowdstrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of Windows systems globally. We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”

Airlines, rail companies, banks and the NHS were among those affected by the outage.

The outage has sparked chaos around the world: Stansted in the UK was one of many airports affected; a Windows ‘Blue Screen of Death’ message in China, a Liquorland store was shut in Australia, and Hamburg airport was also hit. (AP, Reuters, Alamy

A global IT outage caused major infrastructure across the world to grind to a halt on Friday.

Institutions ranging from airports to GP surgeries suffered disruption after their computer systems were taken offline.

CrowdStrike, the firm at the centre of the outage, said it was “deeply sorry” for the incident but warned it would take “some time” for systems to be fully restored.

What happened?
CrowdStrike confirmed the issue was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts”. In other words, this was a flaw in a software update pushed out to customers using Microsoft Windows PCs, which crashed.

CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, providing antivirus and cyberattack prevention tools to thousands of businesses.

What was affected?
The NHS was at the centre of the outage in England, as it caused disruption “in the majority of GP practices” as well as pharmacies. Several ambulance services reported increased pressure and higher call volumes after GP services were affected, while some NHS external providers also faced system issues.

Large queues formed at airports across the UK as airlines reported being unable to process passengers and resorted to manually checking in customers.

Meanwhile, Sky News was briefly knocked off air and many retailers reported issues with taking digital payments.

How long will it take to resolve?
George Kurtz, chief executive of CrowdStrike, said a fix had been deployed for the bug, but added it could take “some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover”.

Given the scale of devices and businesses impacted, it could take several days for every impacted computer to be fixed and returned to normal use, particularly at smaller firms with fewer resources.

Essentially, signs of disruption are likely to remain throughout Friday and into the weekend.

What did Crowdstrike and Microsoft say?
Kurtz said “it is our mission to make sure that every customer is fully recovered, and we’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were, and we’ll continue to protect them and keep the bad guys out of their systems”.

Microsoft chief communications officer Frank Shaw said: “Earlier today, a Crowdstrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of Windows systems globally. We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”

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