CNN
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Services are gradually being restored but delays are expected after the “biggest IT outage in history” has disrupted departments around the world, leaving thousands of passengers stranded in airports, halting emergency communications services and cutting off vital supplies to blood donation centres.
Faulty software updates for the Microsoft Windows operating system issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused outages or disrupted services at airlines, businesses, government agencies, health and emergency services, banks, schools and universities around the world, experts told CNN.
CrowdStrike's CEO said a fix had been distributed, but experts said it would be a lengthy process to get the system back to normal.
At the time of writing, at least 1,014 flights to, from and within the US had been cancelled for Saturday, according to tracking website FlightAware.
More than 3,000 flights were canceled and more than 11,000 were delayed the previous day, according to FlightAware.com.
Major airlines around the world have announced that services are being restored.
United Airlines said in a statement that most of its systems have been restored after a global software outage.
United Airlines said in a statement that “most of our systems have recovered from the global third-party software issue, but we may continue to experience operational disruptions, including flight delays or cancellations.”
Jetstar Japan, Hong Kong Express Airways and Cebu Pacific also announced on Saturday that operations were gradually being restored.
Cancelled and delayed flights have left frustrated passengers queuing at airports and missing important events like funerals and birthdays.
One passenger who spent more than 19 hours at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport won't be returning to his home in Los Angeles anytime soon.
“The system was down so I couldn't rebook on another flight and I didn't get any vouchers for meals or hotels or anything,” Kia Hampton told CNN on Friday afternoon.
Hampton said he slept on the floor at the airport last night after his previous flight was cancelled, adding: “Looks like I'm going to have to sleep here tonight.”
Jennifer Small of New Jersey also spent the night at the airport and had two flights canceled.
“I want to go home to my son. I want to go home to New Jersey,” Small said, adding that she won't be able to return home until Saturday.
Thousands of people packed airports across the country, waiting for answers. Passenger Ty Kelly, who was traveling to Philadelphia to attend a funeral, described it as a chaotic scene.
“It's so crowded, so noisy, and I'm nervous right now,” she said. “I'm going to wait in this long line and try to get to Philadelphia today.”
Another passenger told CNN she was traveling to Boston with her young child for a birthday party. “It was frustrating to say the least,” Spirit Airlines passenger Miya Haney said.
The problems weren't limited to airports: Americans felt the effects of the outages in many aspects of daily life, including calling 911 during emergencies in some areas, getting or renewing a driver's license, and sending or receiving packages.
There are reports that 911 systems in various states, including Alaska, and cities, including Phoenix, were down for hours but then restored, while 911 service remains functional in New York City.
Due to the ongoing power outages, driver's license offices in Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia are closed or offering limited service.
Delivery companies, notably UPS and FedEx, have warned customers that service delays may occur on Friday due to technical issues.
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Meanwhile, thousands of businesses around the world are struggling to process payments as the outage takes down systems across a wide range of industries, including major hotel chains such as Marriott International and some Hilton hotels.
Cybercriminals are already taking advantage of the confusion to promote fake websites packed with malicious software designed to compromise unsuspecting victims, according to warnings from the U.S. government and several cybersecurity experts.
Former McAfee CEO Dave DeWalt told CNN that a group of private sector and government agencies worked through the night to “identify the threat” and find a solution to the global outage. The meetings also included the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and other private and government agencies.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized to customers on Friday for the outage and said the company was working with those affected.
“We understand the gravity of the situation and deeply apologize for any inconvenience and trouble caused,” Kurtz posted on X. “We are working with all affected customers to get our systems back up and running so we can provide the service you expect.”
But that may be easier said than done: manually restarting individual systems takes time and requires expertise that some customers don't have, which is why it takes companies longer to recover from an outage.
CrowdStrike offered customers “full transparency” about how the outage occurred and promised to “make sure this never happens again.”
Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images
A traveler looks at a screen showing delayed and canceled flights at Delta Airlines Terminal 2 at Los Angeles Airport on July 19, 2024. A major computer outage linked to an anti-virus update disrupted airlines, banks, television stations and other businesses around the world on Friday.
Some hospitals have been forced to cancel appointments and surgeries.
While most hospitals stayed open to respond to medical emergencies, some canceled patient appointments and surgeries because they couldn't access electronic medical records or order tests or prescriptions.
Hospital staff are struggling to provide patients with the care they need without the technology they rely on.
Kim Brown, a labor and delivery nurse at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in San Jose, California, was nearing the end of her shift Thursday night when the hospital's computer system, which she relies on to care for women and their babies during labor, went down.
“All of our babies have little plastic tags that sound an alarm if they get too close to an exit or an elevator, and it worked,” Brown said. “It was scary because we had no information. It was just like, 'Oh my goodness, they're all out now.'”
As the power outage could pose a safety risk to newborns, the hospital has requested that security guards be posted near the elevators to ensure the safety of newborns.
Laura Topete, a nurse practitioner in the postpartum care unit at Dignity Health California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles, said she tried to get painkillers for women in pain after giving birth but was stumped because she couldn't access doctor's orders for what medications to prescribe.
“Patients were in pain for longer than they needed to be,” Topete said.
Epic Systems, which makes electronic medical records systems widely used by hospitals and clinics, said on Friday that its cloud-based platform, Nebula, was affected by an outage last night, during which some services, including telehealth visits, were unavailable. Another electronic medical records company, Veradigm, also said its systems were affected by the CrowdStrike outage.
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said the department is working with federal, state, local and private sector partners “to assess the impact of the CrowdStrike outage on patient care and Department of Health and Human Services systems, services, and operations.”
In addition to hospitals, blood donation centers are also facing problems because of flight delays and changing how they ship blood. The New York Blood Center, which supplies about 200 hospitals in the Northeast, has launched emergency drives to distribute blood it has collected, and Blood Assurance said plans to ship at least 20 million platelets — the disc-shaped fragments that help blood clots — are in jeopardy because of flight problems.
Countless government agencies are out of commission
The global technology outage affected the entire US, leaving countless government agencies waiting for services to return to normal.
The mayor of Portland, Oregon, has declared a state of emergency following the ongoing power outage, which Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a news release affected servers in the city's data center, employee computers and single sign-on to cloud services.
In Southern California, the disruptions caused connectivity issues at Los Angeles County Superior Court and temporarily limited inmate capacity at San Diego County jails, officials said.
Meanwhile, some polling places in Arizona's Maricopa County, the fourth-most populous county in the US and home to Phoenix, lost power as early voting continued in the state's primary election, according to the elections department, according to its website.
New York's governor described the impact of the outages on transportation and medical facilities as an “unprecedented situation,” but said emergency services remain the state's top priority.
“We are working with local governments to make sure the 911 system is working,” said Gov. Kathy Hawkle. Hawkle said the 911 system is working in all 62 counties in the state.
At the federal level, U.S. Customs and Border Protection may experience “processing delays” and longer wait times at U.S. ports of entry. CBP is working to restore the system to full operation and mitigate any impacts to operations, international trade and travel, a spokesperson said Friday.
The Social Security Administration closed several local offices on Friday after the outage caused numerous service outages. The agency said in a statement that people should expect longer wait times at its national 800 number and that some online services may be unavailable.
The Justice Department said in a memo that it was exploring workarounds but warned employees that CrowdStrike's issues “are significant and the estimated time of recovery is unknown at this time.”
