American passenger's flight from Japan canceled, lounge is full and baggage delayed
When Patricia Sweeney arrived at gate 133 of Tokyo's Haneda Airport, her American Airlines flight bound for New York was nowhere to be found. It was first delayed by an hour, then canceled.
"I'm upset but taking it in strides," said Sweeney, who lives in Brooklyn and works in finance and was on a business trip. Another American Airlines flight next to her gate was also canceled. "You could just hear a roar of the passengers," she said. "People are not happy."
As she waited for updates from the airline, Sweeney went to the business class lounge which was overcrowded with other affected passengers.
"I told the hotel I had stayed at to rebook a room. But they said they had a system outage," she said over the phone while waiting for her baggage. The hotel rebooked her manually.
While Sweeney was offered a flight for tomorrow morning by the airline, she said a representative later told her that it's still not confirmed.
Chaos for retail and banking worldwide
The outage happened while most stores in the United States were closed for the night. But it has been wreaking havoc elsewhere.
In Britain, grocery chain Waitrose put up signs in some of its outlets warning customers it was only accepting cash.
“All card-readers have failed this morning!” read a handwritten message in one branch in Petersfield, southern England “Sorry for any inconvenience caused!”
In Australia and New Zealand, scores of people posted on social media that they were locked out of their online bank accounts.
“We’re aware of issues currently impacting many banks and businesses across NZ,” the state-owned Kiwibank said on X, replying to a number of users reporting problems. “Our teams are working to resolve the access issues impacting our app and internet banking at the moment, and we hope to have this resolved shortly.”
CrowdStrike shares tank 15% in premarket after major outage hits businesses worldwide
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike saw its shares plunge today, after an update led to a major outage impacting businesses across the world.
Shares of the company, which makes software to help firms manage their security in IT environments, tanked 15% in U.S. premarket trading.
Microsoft, which also reported issues affecting its Azure cloud services and Microsoft 365 suite of apps, fell 2% in premarket trading.
NBC News special report on global outage failures
Watch the full special report on a massive global technical outage tied to CrowdStrike. This cybersecurity provider has knocked critical computer infrastructure offline nationwide and worldwide.
Heath care providers report problems with patient services
A university hospital system in northern Germany has cancelled elective procedures and all outpatient services today due to the IT outage. University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, with its locations in Kiel and Lübeck, says its patient care and emergency services are not affected.
The British National Health Service said the outage was causing "disruption in the majority of GP practices," referring to the general practitioners who act as a first point of contact to access most health services in the U.K.
These family doctors can't access the appointment and patient record system, an NHS spokesperson said, adding that receptionists would be "using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions,"
CrowdStrike CEO blames content update 'defect' for widespread outages
It was not a cyberattack but a faulty update, said George Kurtz, chief executive of CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company being held responsible for today's tech outage.
"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," he said.
"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," added in a post on X. He said customers were impacted by a defective update that affected PCs running Microsoft's Windows operating system.
"This is not a security incident or cyberattack," he said.
"We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels," Kurtz said, adding, "Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."
Microsoft: Outages caused by 'storage incident' and Crowdstrike cybersecurity update
This morning's enormous tech outage was caused, in part, by a "storage incident" that impacted a number of Microsoft's Azure cloud services, which powers everything from banks to airport handling systems.
The issue has been mitigated, Microsoft said in a statement, but the company is still "in the process of validating recovery," of the affected services.
Microsoft said another issue is the "CrowdStrike Falcon agent," a cybersecurity platform used by businesses globally that is separate from Microsoft, that was causing the "blue screen of death," on PCs running the Windows operating system.
"We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike," it said.
CrowdStrike said in a statement on Reddit, that its engineering team had reverted the software updates affecting the issue, and outlined a temporary technical workaround.
Blue Windows error screens seen everywhere from Macy's to LAX
The all-too-familiar Windows error screen — often dubbed the "blue screen of death" by some weary users — could seen on public screens across the United States this morning.
A big screen outside Macy's at Herald Square in New York showed the blue screen and a "Recovery" message, as did terminals at LAX Airport and Minneapolis- St. Paul Airport.
The blue screen curse struck across the world too, with social media users posting photos from London, New Delhi and Istanbul.
Major airports hit by widespread hourlong delays
Some of the world's busiest airports have been hit with average departure delays of more than an hour, data from the flight-tracking platform flightradar24 showed.
Amsterdam's Schipol Airport was experiencing average delays of 75 minutes, with 88% of its flights delayed today. Dozens of flights have been delayed with an average of nearly 50 minutes in both Barcelona and Rome.
Major airports in India, including in the capital city of New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai are topping charts with delays of up to an hour.
At one of the world’s busiest cargo hubs, Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, 97% flights have been delayed with average delay of an hour.
Airports affected worldwide, from Berlin to Hong Kong
Airports worldwide are advising passengers to arrive earlier for their flights as airlines scramble to check-in passengers manually.
"The affected airlines have switched to manual check-in to continue serving passengers," Hong Kong's airport authority said in a statement, adding it had activated its "emergency response mechanism."
India's New Delhi airport said "some of its services" had been impacted, while Germany's Berlin airport warned of check-in delays. Some airlines at Singapore's Changi airport are also checking-in passengers manually, the airport said in a post on X.
Delays were reported by two of Australia's biggest airports, in Sydney and Melbourne.