A wave of IT outages swept across the globe Friday morning, causing more than 1,000 flights to be canceled and internal and external systems to crash in a variety of industries including hospitals, banks, stock exchanges and other institutions, as some Microsoft computers stopped working.
CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity technology company that provides cloud workload protection, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services, said the outage was not due to a cyberattack; rather, it was due to a software issue that has been identified and a fix has been deployed.
“Some systems can be fixed and back up and running right away — but for others, it could take hours, it could take a little bit longer” before everything is back up and running, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told CNBC in an on-air interview. For some customers, it will take more than a reboot to work through the fixes.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers affected by a flaw discovered in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected,” Kurtz said earlier Friday.
“We recommend customers visit our support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide full and ongoing updates on our website. We also recommend that organizations ensure they communicate with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully prepared to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” said Kurtz.
Alaska State Police told ABC News there are 911 outages across the state.
A source told ABC News that some computers at the Justice Department were affected by the outage, though there was no indication it would impact law enforcement operations in the field. A notice from the Justice Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer said the problem was “significant” and there was no time to restore service.
The Department of Justice warned users that they are among the affected corporate and government users worldwide and that the DOJ’s Office of the Chief Information Officer was actively troubleshooting the issue with component information officers and technical teams.
Law enforcement has been notified that cyber actors and hackers are already trying to infiltrate corporate and government IT networks by distributing emails containing malware disguised as fake software fixes for the CrowdStrike vulnerability, a non-government source working on the issue told ABC News.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also issued an alert to hospitals and law enforcement agencies saying that “several government agencies” were affected, including the secretary’s operations center — even as the problem began to subside.
Some hospitals across the country were also affected by IT outages. Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, canceled all elective surgeries on Friday, and Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center in Avondale, Ohio, also reported some disruptions.
The Washington, D.C., Metro system was also affected, with ABC News reporting that some of its internal systems were down and that IT teams were working to fix the problem.
New York City’s mass transit system, the largest in the United States, says bus and train operations have not been affected by the global outage, although some of the network’s customer information systems are temporarily down.
Global IT outages were also reported in several countries around the world including Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft, and Gatwick Airport in the UK.
“We are investigating an issue affecting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement on social media Friday morning.
Airlines are now gradually starting to return to service, but it is expected to be some time before they are fully operational. Delays and cancellations are expected during the morning and early afternoon.
More than 1,000 flights have been canceled in the United States after American Airlines announced AirlinesUnited and Delta have requested a global grounding of all flights from the Federal Aviation Administration, according to an FAA alert Friday morning.
The airlines with the highest cancellation and delay rates so far are Delta and American. Delta had 331 cancellations and 194 delays. In its latest update, Delta said it has resumed some departures.
“Nobody here knows anything, the gate staff said we all know everything they know,” one passenger told ABC News, adding that his flight from Seatac Airport in Washington was delayed for two hours on the tarmac before passengers disembarked. “I feel sorry for the staff and those who need to get to a sick loved one or a funeral, and fortunately we are not like that.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has asked air traffic controllers to inform pilots that airlines are currently experiencing communication issues. Meanwhile, flights already in the air have been cleared to continue, but no American, United or Delta flights took off during the outage.
“We are aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike affecting multiple airlines,” American Airlines said in a statement obtained by ABC News. “American Airlines is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologizes to our customers for the inconvenience.”
“Computer systems have been disrupted worldwide, including at United Airlines,” United said in a statement Friday morning. “While we work to restore these systems, we are keeping all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights that have already departed continue to arrive at their destinations.”
The White House said Friday that President Joe Biden had been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and that his team was in contact with the company and affected organizations.
The White House said its “team is working across agencies to get sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and stands ready to provide assistance as needed.”
CrowdStrike Inc.’s stock price fell in early trading Friday amid a global IT outage that affected customers around the world. Shares were down about 15% Friday morning, sending the price to its lowest level since May.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Ahmed Hemingway, Josh Margolin, Joe Simonetti, Zunera Zaki and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.
