‘A disturbing reminder of vulnerability’: Technology outages bring global activity to a halt

A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline, and media outlets off air on July 19 in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack – and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued – and escalated.

Long lines formed at airports in the United States, Europe, and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia – where telecommunications were severely affected – were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

At Hong Kong’s airport, Yvonne Lee said she only found out her flight to Phuket in Thailand was postponed to July 20 when she arrived at the airport, saying the way it was handled would “affect the image of Hong Kong’s airport very much.”

Her already short five-day trip would now have to be further shortened, she said.

Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed as was the arrival of their uniforms and accreditations, but Games organizers said disruptions were limited and didn’t affect ticketing or the torch relay.

A disturbing reminder of vulnerability

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former Head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre.

DownDetector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms, and online shopping websites across the world were affected – although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we’ve come to rely on at critical times are not going to be available. Hospitals, for example, will struggle to sort out appointments and those who need care may not get it.

“There are going to be deaths because of this. It’s inevitable,’’ Mr. Bore said. “We’ve got so many systems tied up with this.”

Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

CrowdStrike said in an emailed statement that the company “is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”

It said: “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

The Austin, Texas-based company’s Nasdaq-traded shares were down nearly 15% in premarket trading early July 19.

A recording playing on its customer service line said, “CrowdStrike is aware of the reports of crashes on Microsoft ports related to the Falcon sensor,” referring to one of its products used to block online attacks.

Broadcasters go dark, surgeries delayed, “blue screens of death”

Meanwhile, governments, officials, and companies across the world scrambled to respond.

New Zealand’s acting prime minister, David Seymour, said on X that officials in the country were “moving at pace to understand the potential impacts,” adding that he had no information indicating it was a cybersecurity threat.

The issue was causing “inconvenience” for the public and businesses, he added.

On the Milan stock exchange, the FTSE MIB index of blue-chip Italian stocks could not be compiled for an hour, though trading continued.

Major delays reported at airports grew on the morning of July 19, with most attributing the problems in booking systems of individual airlines.

In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta, and Allegiant had all been grounded.

Airlines and railways in the U.K. were also affected, with longer than usual waiting times.

In Germany, Berlin-Brandenburg Airport halted flights for several hours due to difficulties checking in passengers, while landings at Zurich airport were suspended and flights in Hungary, Italy, and Turkey were disrupted.

The Dutch carrier KLM said it had been “forced to suspend most” of its operations.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport warned that the outage was having a “major impact on flights” to and from the busy European hub. The chaotic morning coincided with one of the busiest days of the year for Schiphol.

Widespread problems were reported at Australian airports, where lines grew and some passengers were stranded as online check-in services and self-service booths were disabled – although flights were still operating.

In India, Hong Kong, and Thailand, many airlines were forced to manually check in passengers. An airline in Kenya was also reporting disruption.

Australia bears brunt of outages in Asia

While the outages were being experienced worldwide, Australia appeared to be severely affected by the issue. Disruption reported on the site DownDetector included the banks NAB, Commonwealth, and Bendigo, and the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas, as well as internet and phone providers such as Telstra.

National news outlets – including public broadcaster ABC and Sky News Australia – were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels for hours. Some news anchors went on air online from dark offices, in front of computers showing “blue screens of death.”

Hospitals in several countries also reported problems.

Britain’s National Health Service said the outage caused problems at most doctors’ offices across England. NHS England said in a statement that the glitch was affecting the appointment and patient record system used across the public health system.

Some hospitals in northern Germany canceled all elective surgery scheduled for July 19, but emergency care was unaffected.

Israel said its hospitals and post office operations were disrupted.

In South Africa, at least one major bank said it was experiencing nationwide service disruptions as customers reported they were unable to make payments using their bank cards in stores. The New Zealand banks ASB and Kiwibank said their services were down as well.

Shipping was disrupted, too: A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, the Baltic Hub, said it was battling problems resulting from the global system outage.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. Elaine Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok and Charlotte Graham-McLay from Wellington, New Zealand. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.