Global Chaos as Massive IT Outage Disrupts Services

News Today: IT Outage Causes Global Chaos with Service Disruptions

Television channels, airports, and banks worldwide have been knocked offline in a massive IT outage causing Windows computers to suddenly shut down. Patients have been left unable to make appointments with their GPs, and rail commuters have been told to expect long delays as IT systems were plunged into chaos.

Sky News’s breakfast show was taken off air, while supermarket checkouts went down as the disruption spread across Britain and the globe. Online users reported problems as far as Australia, New Zealand, India, and Japan, with the UK heavily impacted.

Cybersecurity engineers have pointed to a problem with CrowdStrike, an antivirus software, which appeared to be causing computers to crash. A “buggy” update to one of CrowdStrike’s products may have been the cause of the global outage, according to Toby Murray, associate professor at The University of Melbourne.

CrowdStrike Falcon, an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platform, monitors computers to detect and respond to intrusions. Due to its privileged nature, a malfunction in Falcon could be causing a widespread outage, as it is widely deployed on many computers.

Luton Airport said the global IT outage is affecting some airlines and operations are continuing with manual systems. Microsoft 365 is investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access apps and services, stating, “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.”

GP appointment booking systems are down following the global tech outage, the NHS has confirmed. Health officials said family doctors are struggling to access systems, with some practices saying they are unable to book appointments. The main IT system used by primary care is understood to have been hit by the problems, which have seen airports, banks, and television channels knocked offline.