A wave of computer outages swept the world Friday morning, causing more than 1,000 flight cancellations and crashing internal and external systems in various sectors, including hospitals, banks, stock exchanges and other institutions, as some Microsoft-based computers stopped working.
CrowdStrike, a US cybersecurity technology company that provides cloud workload protection, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services, said the outage was not due to a cyberattack; it was caused by a software issue that was identified and a fix deployed.
Some systems can be repaired and made operational immediately, but for others, it could take “hours or a little longer” before everything is back up and running, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz told CNBC in a live interview. For some customers, it will take more than rebooting systems to fix the problems.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a flaw found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted,” Kurtz said earlier Friday.
“We are directing customers to the Support Portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide comprehensive and ongoing updates on our website. We also recommend that organizations ensure they are communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully committed to ensuring the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” Kurtz said.
Alaska State Police told ABC News that there were 911 power outages across the state.
Some Justice Department computers were affected by the outage, but there is no indication it is affecting law enforcement operations in the field, a source told ABC News. An advisory issued by the Justice Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer said the issue was “significant” and there was no timeline for recovery.
The Department of Justice has alerted users that they are among affected business and government users worldwide and that the Justice Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer has been actively resolving possible workarounds with component CIOs and technical teams.
Law enforcement has been notified that there are already online actors and hackers trying to infiltrate corporate and government computer networks by distributing emails containing malware disguised as fake software patches for the CrowdStrike issue, a non-government source working on the problem told ABC News.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services also issued an alert to hospitals and law enforcement, saying “multiple government agencies” were affected, including the secretary’s operations center — even as the problem begins to subside.
Some hospitals across the country were also affected by the outage. Mass General Brigham in Boston, Massachusetts, canceled all elective surgeries Friday, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Avondale, Ohio, also reported disruptions.
The DC Metro system was also impacted, with ABC News telling ABC News that some of its internal systems were down and IT teams were working to resolve the issue.
New York City’s transit system, the largest in the United States, says bus and train operations are unaffected by the global outage, although some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline.
Global IT outages were also reported in many countries around the world, including at Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Gatwick Airport in the UK.
“We are investigating an issue affecting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said in a statement posted to social media Friday morning.
Airlines are gradually starting to resume operations, but it will take some time before they are fully operational again. Delays and cancellations are expected throughout the morning and into the early afternoon.
More than 1,000 flights have been canceled in the United States after American Airlines, United and Delta asked the FAA for a global grounding of all flights, according to an FAA alert issued Friday morning.
The airlines that have seen the most cancellations and delays so far are Delta and American Airlines. Delta has seen 331 cancellations and 194 delays. In its latest update, Delta said it has resumed some flight departures.
“Nobody here knows anything, the flight attendants said we all know as much as they do,” one airline passenger told ABC News, explaining that his flight from SeaTac Airport in Washington was delayed two hours on the tarmac before passengers were deplaned. “I feel bad for the employees and for those who have to go to a sick family member or a funeral, thank goodness it’s not us.”
The FAA has asked air traffic controllers to inform pilots in the air that airlines are currently experiencing communication issues. In the meantime, flights already underway have been allowed to continue, but no American, United or Delta flights have taken off during the outage.
“We are aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is affecting multiple carriers. American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” American Airlines said in a statement obtained by ABC News.
“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems around the world, including those at United Airlines,” United Airlines said in a statement Friday morning. “As we work to restore these systems, we are grounding all aircraft at their originating airports. Flights already in the air are continuing on to their destinations.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and his team is in contact with the company and affected organizations, the White House said Friday.
“His team is mobilized across agencies to obtain sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and stands ready to provide assistance as needed,” the White House said.
CrowdStrike’s stock price plummeted Friday morning as a global IT outage affected customers around the world. Shares fell nearly 15% Friday morning, bringing the stock to its lowest level since May.
This is a developing story. Please check back regularly for updates.
-ABC News’ Ahmad Hemingway, Josh Margolin, Joe Simonetti, Zunaira Zaki and Helena Skinner contributed to this report.