Massive Microsoft and Crowdstrike outage causes global disruption

IT teams around the world are scrambling to fix a massive outage and it is unclear exactly how large the disruption has become.

Airlines, banks, media outlets and various other businesses worldwide have been left reeling from what appears to be a global Microsoft outage.

The global IT issue has caused chaos, with airlines around the world reporting delayed and cancelled flights. There are reports of various PCs showing the famous ‘blue screen of death’ – a Windows error message.

The Verge reports that this issue was first noted by Australian businesses, but it has since spread with airlines across Europe reporting issues. Multiple media outlets are sharing live updates on the issue and the reports of disruptions appear to be pouring in worldwide.

One recent update from the BBC is that the outage has caused disruptions to the UK’s National Health Service, causing GPs to only see the most unwell patients. Sky News says it is struggling to broadcast its live TV service, Ryanair is reporting disruptions, banks have been impacted – the scale of the disruption appears to be massive.

While the scale of the issue is clear, the cause is less certain. Microsoft reported an issue earlier today (19 July) of users being “unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services”. The tech giant said it rerouted affected traffic to “healthy infrastructure” and reported “continuous improvement” two hours ago.

The wave of IT issues is being linked to a faulty update from Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity provider used on various Windows PCs.

Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said it is aware of a “large-scale technical outage” and that it appears the outage relates to a “technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies”.

Crowdstrike told media outlets that it is aware of the reports of Windows systems crashing. Crowdstrike said it identified the issue and reverted the faulty update, but it does not appear to have fixed the ongoing issue.

It will take time to confirm the exact cause and the true scale of the disruption.

The outage will likely be a significant hit to the reputation of Microsoft, which has been criticised for its connection to massive breaches in recent years.

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