Companies and airlines struggle to recover after global IT outage disrupts business worldwide

Companies are trying to pick up the pieces a day after a global IT outage disrupted major industries around the world, including airports, businesses and broadcasters.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said a sensor configuration update for its Falcon platform released on Friday “triggered a logic error” that led to “a system crash and blue screen (BSOD) on affected systems.” The issue was resolved soon after, the company said.

But what followed was a massive information technology failure for airlines, medical facilities, businesses and police forces around the world, with Microsoft computers showing “Blue Screens of Death”.

Saturday morning David Weston, vice president of enterprise and operating system security at Microsoft, said on Microsoft’s official blog that 8.5 million Microsoft devices were affected by the outage.

“We currently estimate that the CrowdStrike update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” he wrote. “Although the percentage was small, the broad economic and social impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by companies that manage many critical services.”

Major US airlines have suspended flights, causing global delays. As of Saturday morning, more than 2,500 flights flying to, from and within the U.S. were canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

Long lines of weary travelers can still be seen at airports around the world, including in Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Bali.

In Alaska, troopers said 911 services were down across the state but later said they were operating normally. New Hampshire and Plano, Texas, were also among the states and communities that reported problems with 911 due to the outage, but have since said they were operating normally.

Medical facilities were also affected by the outage, including 51 hospitals under the Providence Southern California umbrella in western states, according to the healthcare organization.

Several major U.S. hospitals have been forced to cancel surgeries and doctor appointments. The daughter of a 73-year-old man who was scheduled to have open-heart surgery on Friday at Baptist Health hospital in Paducah, Kentucky, said the procedure to clear eight blockages and repair an aneurysm was canceled due to global technology disruption. .

Courts in Massachusetts and New York also had their operations disrupted by the outage on Friday, according to The Associated Press.

The issue also affected banks, leaving some customers without access to their money. People in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere have reported problems logging into their accounts at major retail banks. Meanwhile, the London Stock Exchange, the largest of its kind in Europe, said some of its services had been disrupted, although trading was not prevented.

Starbucks, which had issues with its mobile order-ahead and pay features, said they were back up and running Saturday morning.

Senator Eric Schmitt, Republican of Missouri, asked the Defense Department’s acting chief information officer for a briefing on the IT issue by July 26.

A Defense Department spokesperson said it was aware of the issues and that personnel were monitoring their networks for possible impacts.

“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 reads.