Global tech outage: Vital NHS system goes down along with Heathrow, London Stock Exchange and Sky News
Online systems around the world are crashing in what appears to be a global technical crash.
The London Stock Exchange’s RNS Service, airlines, telecoms companies, banks and media organisations went down in the early hours of Friday, reportedly due to an update issue with cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike that caused Microsoft 365 and Azure services to fail.
Crowdstrike boss George Kurtz has said the company understands the gravity of the situation and is “deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption.”
Trading continues to operate as normal on the London Stock Exchange. It said it is “working on resolving this issue as soon as possible and will continue to provide updates to our customers.”
Some airlines including Ryanair have reported disruption, with many flights grounded and, in the UK, railway companies are experiencing “widespread IT issues”.
It has also been reported that GP services across the country have been hit as a vital NHS booking system has collapsed.
Heathrow airport is still operating but some of its systems have been hit by the outage. A spokesperson said: “Microsoft is currently experiencing a global outage which is impacting select systems at Heathrow.
“Flights are operational and we are implementing contingency plans to minimise any impact on journeys. Passengers are advised to check with their airline for the latest flight information.”
Stansted Airport has said some retail payment machine services have been impacted but “are slowly coming back online, and cash/pdq payments being taken in the meantime.” Some airline check-in services are being done manually, it added.
In India, one traveller reported that airlines are resorting to hand-written boarding passes.
At 07:00, South Western Railway said its ticket machines were not working:
In the UK, Sky News said it was unable to broadcast live on Friday morning. Sky News sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao posted on X: “We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying.”
Across the world, so-called blue screens of death are appearing on online servers, blocking many businesses’ ability to work.
Australians began reporting issues early on Friday afternoon AEST, with India, New Zealand, some parts of Asia and the US also affected.
Microsoft, which says it is taking action to fix the problem, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US tech giant said its outage started at about 18:00 ET (00:00 BST) on Thursday.
On social media, the tech outage has been blamed on an update to the Crowdstrike security software, causing an issue with Windows software. Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike says the cause is currently under investigation.
Crowdstrike president and chief executive George Kurtz issued a statement, saying “this is not a security incident or cyberattack”.
“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he said, “We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.
“We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”
Kurtz added the company is actively working with impacted customers.
US listed stock Crowdstrike has crashed nearly 14 per cent in pre-market trading, while Microsoft shares are down almost two per cent, wiping billions of dollars off its value.