Microsoft global outage: Major banks, airlines and media impacted

A major IT outage in Microsoft’s Azure platform has disrupted companies and banks worldwide, resulting in flight cancellations and widespread confusion.

The outage, which occurred on Friday, affected banks, media organisations, and airlines, leading to chaotic scenes at airport check-ins and numerous flight cancellations, according to multiple media reports.

The incident is believed to be linked to an outage of Microsoft’s Azure and Office365 services.

Millions of Windows users globally are encountering the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, causing their systems to abruptly shut down or restart.

Meanwhile at the ABC.

Is your #microsoft down too? @abcnews pic.twitter.com/9L6HThe6l1

— Andy Park (@andy_park) July 19, 2024

Microsoft attributed the error to a recent update from CrowdStrike. The company noted that the outage began with a subset of customers in the Central US region experiencing issues with multiple Azure services.

We’re investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. More info posted in the admin center under MO821132 and on https://t.co/W5Y8dAkjMk

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 18, 2024

Azure is a cloud computing platform that offers services for building, deploying, and managing applications and services. Additionally, Microsoft reported that it is investigating an issue impacting various Microsoft 365 apps and services.

‘Not a cyber-security incident’

Meanwhile, Reuters quoted a UK government security source saying, the global IT outage which has affected media companies, banks and telecoms firms around the world on Friday is not being treated as a malicious act.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security experts were not treating it as a cyber-related security issue.

Switzerland

The Swiss Federal Office for Cyber ​​Security (BACS) said a faulty update or misconfiguration by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike had led to international tech outages on Friday.

“The BACS is aware of the outages mentioned and has received corresponding reports from various companies and critical infrastructures,” the BACS said in a statement.

“A faulty update or misconfiguration by CrowdStrike is leading to these system outages. The BACS is in contact with the companies affected.”

Global impact

Additionally, New Zealand’s parliamentary computer systems were affected, according to Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, head of the parliamentary service.

The Baltic Hub container terminal in the Polish city of Gdansk said it was hit by the global outage in Microsoft systems and was working to solve the issue.

The Paris Olympics organising committee said the cyber outage was slowing its operations, but the impact was limited and ticket sales were unaffected.

Flights hit in India

Multiple airlines in India such as Air India, Indigo, Spicejet, which fly to the UAE, reported their systems were down due to the Microsoft Azure outage.

Customer Advisory

Our digital systems have been impacted temporarily due to the current Microsoft outage resulting in delays. We regret the inconvenience caused and request our guests to plan their travel accordingly.#AirIndia

— Air India (@airindia) July 19, 2024

pic.twitter.com/SI8mcURA1H

— IndiGo (@IndiGo6E) July 19, 2024

#ImportantUpdate: We are currently experiencing technical challenges with our service provider, affecting online services including booking, check-in, and manage booking functionalities. As a result, we have activated manual check-in and boarding processes across airports. We…

— SpiceJet (@flyspicejet) July 19, 2024

Apart from flights, Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, said it briefly halted production and despatch operations. It has resumed operations and does not expect any material impact from the incident.

Flights impacted in Australia

Airlines such as Qantas in Australia, as well as US low-cost carriers Frontier and Sun Country Airlines, have been forced to ground their flights due to the disruption.

DEVELOPING: Adelaide Airport has been caught up in the chaos of a global technology disaster plus severe weather. Passengers are being warned to brace for major delays – at least two flights have been cancelled. US cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike says the crash is… pic.twitter.com/dLWtlmcaRc

— 7NEWS Adelaide (@7NewsAdelaide) July 19, 2024

US carriers halt flights

According to a Reuters report, major US carriers including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines issued ground stops on Friday morning citing communication issues, less than an hour after Microsoft resolved its cloud services outage that impacted several low-cost carriers.

We’re aware of a technology issue with a vendor that is impacting multiple carriers. American is working with the vendor to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.

— americanair (@AmericanAir) July 19, 2024

It was not immediately clear whether the call to keep flights from taking off were related to the earlier Microsoft cloud outage. Apart from American and Delta, UAL and Allegiant Air too grounded flights.

The FAA did not immediately respond to Reuters‘ request for comment.

Low-cost carriers Frontier Airlines, a unit of Frontier Group Holdings, Allegiant and SunCountry had earlier reported outages that affected operations. Frontier said late Thursday that it was in the process of resuming normal operations, and that the ground stop had been lifted.

Frontier said earlier that a “major Microsoft technical outage” hit its operations temporarily, while SunCountry said a third-party vendor affected its booking and check-in facilities, without naming the company.

US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said the department was monitoring the flight cancellation and delay issues at Frontier, adding that the agency will hold the company and all other airlines “to their responsibilities to meet the needs of passengers”.

Finance industry

Australia’s largest bank, Commonwealth Bank, said earlier issues affecting PayID instant transfers had been resolved. Services including Netbank, the CommBank app, CommBiz, merchant payments and ATMs are available.

Several major oil and gas trading desks in London and Singapore were struggling to execute trades, six industry sources told Reuters.

Macquarie Capital was unable to provide liquidity for unexpired warrants on HKEX.

South Africa’s Capitec said card payments, ATM and app services were fully restored following significant nationwide disruptions.

LSEG Group’s Workspace news and data platform suffered an outage that affected user access worldwide, causing disruption across financial markets. It said in a client memo that technical problems on FX spot and forward rates have been resolved and services restored.

Some brokerages in India are facing technical difficulties, traders at the brokerages told Reuters.

German insurer Allianz said it was experiencing a major outage that is impacting employees’ ability to log on to their computers. Additionally, some German banks are facing disruptions, a spokesperson for the Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft financial industry association, said on Friday, without providing further details.

Barclays said its digital investing platform Smart Investor was impacted.

Brazilian lender Bradesco said its digital platforms were unavailable on Friday.

Healthcare and emergency services 

England’s National Health Service (NHS) said bookings of doctors’ appointments and patient records were disrupted, but emergency services had not been affected.

Several hospitals in the Netherlands had to scale down their operations, Dutch press agency ANP reported. Copenhagen’s fire department said on X it was experiencing problems receiving automatically transmitted fire alarms, and urged people to call 112 in case of a fire.

Victorian state police in Australia said some internal systems had been hit but emergency services were operating normally.

Two hospitals in the northern German cities of Luebeck and Kiel have cancelled elective operations scheduled for Friday. Other critical infrastructure in Germany has been affected, an interior ministry spokesperson said.

Media

Britain’s Sky News resumed broadcasting after an hours-long outage, but operating at minimal capacity and without many of its usual services. Regular programming at Sky News Australia was disrupted.

Australia’s state broadcaster ABC said it was experiencing a “major network outage”, without giving a reason.

This is a developing news story.