A widespread technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off air on Friday 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.


Maryland courts, offices and facilities will be closed to the public

Maryland’s Judiciary has announced that all Maryland courts, offices and facilities will be closed to the public on Friday because of the Microsoft outage, but will remain open for emergency matters.

“Due to the worldwide Microsoft outage, all Maryland courts, offices, and facilities will be closed to the public today but will remain open for emergency matters,” the judiciary said in a news release. “All clerks’ offices are closed.”

The Maryland Department of Emergency Management announced Friday that it was increasing the state activation level from “normal” to “partial,” meaning there’s an event that requires significant monitoring or resources. The agency is also activating its emergency operations center.


Brazilian bank says digital services are unstable

Bradesco, one of the main banks in Brazil, notified its users via its app that digital services were unstable because of a global cyber outage, but its ATMs were working normally. Bradesco has more than 100 million clients.

Azul Airlines, a Brazilian low-cost airline, said that its check-in systems were affected, causing occasional flight delays. The company recommended that customers arrive at the airport earlier.

The National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil said that it’s monitoring the impacts on airports, but so far there haven’t been major delays.

Mass General Brigham canceling all nonurgent care visits

The Boston-based health system Mass General Brigham said on its website that it was canceling all nonurgent care visits because of the outage, but its emergency rooms remain open.

The company said on its website that it can’t gain access to its clinical systems, including patient health records and scheduling.

It asked patients not to call to reschedule and said a care team member would reach out to them instead.

About 1,500 US flights canceled by late morning, FlightAware says

By late morning on the East Coast, about 1,500 U.S. flights had been canceled and nearly 4,000 delayed — numbers that were sure to grow throughout the day — according to FlightAware.

Delta canceled nearly 500 flights, American canceled 300 and United more than 200, and those numbers don’t include flights on their regional affiliates.

CrowdStrike CEO says sorry for impact of outage

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on NBC’s “Today Show” Friday. “We know what the issue is” and are working to remediate it.

He said the system was sent an update and the update had a bug in it causing a problem to Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

“It was only the Microsoft operating system” that was affected, though it didn’t happen on every Microsoft Windows system, he said.


Capital Economics says outage likely to have little impact on world economy

The global computer outage likely will have little impact on the world economy, according to forecasting firm Capital Economics, particularly because it hasn’t disrupted financial markets.

“While things are still very uncertain, we do not anticipate a major macroeconomic or financial market impact at this stage,” Jennifer McKeown, chief global economist at Capital Economics, said in a written comment. “It is encouraging from an economic standpoint that there has been little financial disturbance so far.”

The firm estimated in late 2022 that even a cyberattack that lasted several days would only shave global economic growth by about 0.2%.

“Given that this is not a cyberattack and has not affected all software by any stretch, the implications should be significantly smaller,” McKeown said.

Cybersecurity analyst calls outage historic mistake by CrowdStrike

Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity industry analyst, said that this was a historic mistake by CrowdStrike.

“This is easily the worst faux pas, technical faux pas or glitch of any security software provider ever,” said Stiennon, who has tracked the cybersecurity industry for 24 years.

He said while the problem is an easy technical fix, it’s impact could be long lasting.

“It’s really, really difficult to touch millions of machines. And people are on vacation right now, so, you know, the CEO will be coming back from his trip to the Bahamas in a couple of weeks and he won’t be able to use his computers.”

A county in Michigan closes nonessential operations for the day

In Michigan, Genesee County, which includes Flint, closed nonessential county government operations for the day.


Panama airline advises passengers to arrive to airport 3 hours ahead of time

In Panama, Copa Airlines was recommending that travelers arrive to the capital’s Tocumen International Airport at least three hours before their scheduled flights because some procedures were being carried out manually, delaying check-in.

The airline, however, said that it didn’t expect cancellations.


South African airports unaffected by global outage

The company that runs South Africa’s airports, which include some of the busiest on the African continent, says they have been unaffected by the global network outage.

Airports Company South Africa says it doesn’t use CrowdStrike services and operations are running as normal.


Some US TV stations couldn’t air local news

The global outage has prevented several TV stations in the U.S. from airing local news early Friday.

KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, aired national news network Scripps News instead of local news until about 5:35 a.m., the stations said on its website. IT teams and engineers worked through the night to resolve the glitch, the station said.

Other local stations owned by Scripps and other companies reported similar problems.

Scripps spokesman Michael Perry said in an email that as of 8 a.m. EDT, 90% of stations were able to air local news.


Universal Studios Japan says ticket sales are affected

Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, western Japan, has said that the global system outage will continue to affect ticket sales at the attraction over the weekend.

The park said its ticket booth sales will not be available Saturday and Sunday, and asked visitors to purchase their tickets on its official website or via a designated ticket sales site.

Park attractions are not affected.


Microsoft confirms Crowdstrike update was responsible for issues

Microsoft spokesperson Frank X. Shaw has confirmed that “a Crowdstrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of Windows systems globally.”

“We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery,” he said in an emailed statement Friday.

President Biden’s team is in touch with Crowdstrike

President Joe Biden has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and his team has been in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities, according to the White House.

Biden is getting continued updates throughout the day and the administration is “standing by to provide assistance as needed,” the White House said.

Japan’s Jetstar cancels mostly domestic flights

At the Narita International Airport near Tokyo, passengers of low-cost carrier Jetstar Japan formed long lines waiting at the airline’s departure counter, where boarding had to be processed manually due to a system failure.

Jetstar Japan said it has canceled 28 flights, most of them domestic, due to a software problem that stalled the airline’s boarding procedures at airports across the country including Narita.

The airline apologized for the inconveniences and said it was doing utmost to restore the system as soon as possible.

Border crossings and healthcare affected in Canada

In Canada, the tech outage grounded some flights, disrupted hospitals and backed up border crossings on Friday.

Porter Airlines said it is cancelling its flights until 12 p.m. ET due to the outage. Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline, said there is no major impact to its operations.

University Health Network, one of Canada’s largest hospital networks, said some of its systems had been impacted and some patients may experience delays.

Windsor Police reported long delays at both the Canada-United States border crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.


What is Crowdstrike?

Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company at the heart of the global outage, was founded in 2012 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alerovitch and Gregg Marston, according to its website. It says it is the most advanced cloud-based security technology provider.

Kurtz, its CEO, said in a note on the site that “Our team of visionaries are the rebels who believe the current state of security is fundamentally broken and want to do something about it.”

CrowdStrike listed on the Nasdaq exchange five years ago. It reported last month that its revenue rose 33% in the last quarter from the previous quarter and that logged a net profit of $42.8 million, up from $491,000 in the first quarter of this year.

The company has a partnership with Amazon Web Services and its Falcon for Defender is designed to supplement Microsoft Defender to prevent attacks.

The firm said Friday’s global disruptions occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows. The issue was not a security incident or cyberattack, and a fix was on the way, it said.

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