Global IT outage affecting banks, airlines, media outlets across the world

[canetoad]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: abc.net.au

There are reports of IT outages affecting major institutions in Australia and internationally.

The ABC is experiencing a major network outage, along with several other media outlets.

Crowd-sourced website Downdetector is listing outages for Foxtel, National Australia Bank and Bendigo Bank.

Follow our live blog as we bring you the latest updates.

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-19/global-it-outage-crowdstrike-microsoft-banks-airlines-australia/104119960

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This is pretty much live reporting. There are other articles on the same topic at the link.

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Updated:
It appears that Crowdstrike, a cyber security group is responsible for the outage. I haven't read all of it yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStrike

2024 Blue Screen of DeathOn July 19, 2024, a faulty CrowdStrike update caused the Blue Screen of Death on Microsoft Windows, affecting millions of computers worldwide, including those of essential services like emergency services, hospitals, banks, airlines, trains and others.

5.20pm
Crowdstrike offers workaround for outage
By Anthony Segaert

If you’ve been affected by this outage and you’re on a Microsoft computer (join the club), we’ve just received an update from Crowdstrike about a temporary workaround.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Spreading around the world - banks, airlines, TV stations, rail companies

(but not DU, thankfully!)

Businesses including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets have been taken offline after blue screen of death error screens were seen on Windows workstations across the globe.

Users on the subreddit for cyber security firm Crowdstrike reported issues in India, the United States and New Zealand.

Sky News in the United Kingdom reported being off air on Friday morning, with Sky News sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao posting on X: “We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying.”
...
A major UK train company warned passengers to expect disruption as it was suffering “widespread IT issues”. All four of Govia Thameslink Railway’s brands – Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern – posted on social media: “We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/jul/19/microsoft-windows-pcs-outage-blue-screen-of-death

US airlines issue global ground stop on all flights

United, Delta and American Airlines - which are all based in the United States - have issued a "global ground stop" on all of their flights.

Flights that are currently airborne will continue, but no further flights will take off for now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cnk4jdwp49et?post=asset%3A18a5d341-b8e2-4c7e-8ea6-cbcf8d150996#post

[canetoad]

2. Don't you hate

Those passive-aggressive "Let us serve you on another register" signs?

Internet and banking seem to be OK where I am.

[pnwmom]

3. Here is the link to the NYT report on the outage.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/19/business/global-tech-outage
The outage appeared to affect card payments at Waitrose stores across Britain. Cashless customers, unable to buy their morning coffee and croissant, are taking to social media to complain.

Andrés R. Martínez
July 19, 2024, 4:49 a.m. ET19 minutes ago
19 minutes ago
Andrés R. MartínezReporting from Seoul

A very tiny sample, but I now have access to my Windows computer after being one of the many people across the world that had been blocked from accessing key Microsoft programs that make their computers run. Hopefully more people will regain access soon.

Stephen Merelman
July 19, 2024, 4:45 a.m. ET23 minutes ago
23 minutes ago
Stephen Merelman

In New York City, the Metropolitan Transit Authority said on its website that train and bus service was continuing as normal, but that some customer information systems were offline.

Liz Alderman
July 19, 2024, 4:40 a.m. ET28 minutes ago
28 minutes ago
Liz AldermanReporting from Paris

In France, numerous media outlets reported problems. TF1 and Canal+, among the most watched, said in posts on X that they could not go on the air. “We’re all on stage, but there’s a gigantic breakdown in the control room” making it impossible to go live, Christophe Beaugrand-Guerrin, a TF1 presenter, wrote on X.

MORE AT LINK

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Oh noes! I was just about to go out to shop at Waitrose and get a coffee

Last edited Fri Jul 19, 2024, 08:18 AM - Edit history (1)

I will report back from the front lines ...

Mostly working by the time I got there - no contactless payments, but cards with PINs were accepted, and the free coffee was flowing.

[Eugene]

4. Microsoft says it restored cloud services after outage but 'blue screen of death' persists for many

Microsoft says it restored cloud services after outage but ‘blue screen of death’ persists for many (CNBC)

Microsoft’s
cloud services have been restored after an outage, the company said on Friday, but many users are still reporting issues.

It comes as cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike also suffered a major outage resulting from an issue with its latest update, the company told NBC. CrowdStrike is now in the process of rolling back that update globally.

It is not clear whether Microsoft’s initial issues — which it said affected its Azure services and Microsoft 365 suite of apps in the central U.S. region — were directly related to the CrowdStrike update. On Friday, Microsoft said the majority of its services were recovered.

However, the update issue at CrowdStrike does appear to have directly affected Windows systems globally, with laptops showing an error screen known as the “blue screen of death.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/19/microsoft-says-it-restored-cloud-services-after-they-suffered-outage.html

________________________________________________

Oops!

[mnhtnbb]

5. Flightaware is great for tracking

Delays/cancellations worldwide by airport and for specific flights.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/cancelled

[unweird]

9. Not accurate this morning for Pittsburgh

Only showing one Delta flight delayed and I can see four Delta gates impacted right now.

[nuxvomica]

7. I leave my work laptop on when on-call

And this morning, it had the blue screen so I rebooted without problems. Thanks for posting because I was wondering what happened.

[unweird]

8. Ground stop now with next update 8am edt.

Sitting at a gate and they can’t even do seat assignments. Going to be a long Friday.

[mnhtnbb]

10. My condolences.

Are you going somewhere you could drive?

My son once was stuck in Philly and several waiting passengers got together and rented a van to drive to New Haven.
Years ago, my husband and I joined a fellow passenger to rent a car and drive from St Louis to Kansas City.

Good luck!

[SorellaLaBefana]

11. "Wired" has as good a discussion of this as I've seen

...In the early hours of Friday, companies in Australia running Microsoft’s Windows operating system started reporting devices showing Blue Screens of Death (BSODs). Shortly after, reports of disruptions started flooding in from around the world, including from the UK, India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US: TV station Sky News went offline, and US airlines United, Delta, and American Airlines issued a “global ground stop” on all flights.

The widespread Windows outages have been linked to a software update from cybersecurity giant ​​CrowdStrike. It is not believed the issues are linked to a malicious cyberattack, cybersecurity officials say, but stem from a misconfigured/corrupted update that CrowdStrike pushed out to its customers...

Cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont posted on X that he has seen a copy of the CrowdStrike update that was issued and says the file isn’t properly formatted and “causes Windows to crash every time.” Beaumont says, in further posts, that it appears there isn’t an automated way to fix the issues, at least currently.

Brody Nisbet, the director of overwatch at CrowdStrike, also posted on X indicating the workaround fix the company had issued involves booting up Windows machines into safe mode, finding a file called “C-00000291*.sys,” deleting it, and then rebooting the machine normally...

https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-windows-outage-crowdstrike-global-it-probems/?_sp=4b5025ec-2d9e-49e8-b3e7-718834e26afc.1721384157622

Paywalled, but if you don't read Wired regularly, you might be able to access it as they allow for a few articles a month to be read for free

Why an update was pushed out apparently without testing is a mystery, but something which seems to be happening with more frequency.

Windoz seems especially sensitive to being broken by almost any sort of update. My main computer (W10) generally has issues following almost any MS update—admittedly the computer has a lot of crap on it—whilst my Apples and various Linuxi flavours are more robust.

[canetoad]

13. Thanks

Good article.

[dalton99a]

15. +1

Beaumont says, in further posts, that it appears there isn’t an automated way to fix the issues, at least currently. This may mean that impacted machines need to be manually rebooted before they can come back online, a process that could take hours or days depending on the impacted entity.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

16. W10 is worse than 7

I'd much rather still be using 7.

[sl8]

12. American Airlines says they're back up, as of 5 AM ET.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/business/delta-american-airlines-flights-outage-intl-hnk/index.html#:

“Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” the American Airlines said in a statement to CNN.

[FakeNoose]

14. Kind of a shit show for IT managers right now

Someone posted this on Imgur a couple hours ago....

If you have Crowdstrike on your machine, and have BSOD:
1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or WRE.
2. Go to C:WindowsSystem32driversCrowdStrike
3. Locate and delete file matching "C-00000291*.sys"
4. Boot normally.

BSOD = blue screen of death

I don't know, I checked my bank and a few other websites that I use frequently, they all seem to be working norm

[twodogsbarking]

17. Our hospital is having the problem. A nightmare.

[Omaha Steve]

18. AFTER a review by forum hosts LOCKING

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