Microsoft Update Triggers The Largest Tech Disaster in History

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Microsoft Update Triggers The Largest Tech Disaster in History

19 July 2024

On Friday morning, a global computer outage led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights across the United States, causing delays and confusion at airports nationwide. The disruption also affected international airlines, mass transit in New York and Washington, DC, some 911 operations in the US, banking in multiple countries, Hong Kong’s Disneyland, and the Israeli health service.

FlightAware.com reported that over 1,409 flights into, out of, or within the United States were canceled, with a total of 2,435 cancellations worldwide. Additionally, there were 3,616 delays within, into, or out of the United States, contributing to a global total of 24,802 delays. Charlotte Douglas International Airport advised passengers not to come unless they had confirmed flights. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stated it was monitoring the issue affecting IT systems at US airlines and assisting several airlines with ground stops.

The outage resulted from two issues involving widely used Microsoft systems. On Thursday, some Microsoft clients in the central United States, including some airlines, were affected by an outage on its Azure cloud service system. Microsoft indicated the company had identified a preliminary cause. Some users may still be unable to access certain Microsoft 365 apps and services, including Teams video conferencing. Microsoft is working to restore services for those still experiencing disruptions.

Separately, on Friday, many Windows devices experienced problems due to a flawed security update from CrowdStrike. CEO George Kurtz explained that the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” He emphasized, “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified and isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”

Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines were among the carriers impacted. Delta paused its global flight schedule, while American Airlines resolved the issue early Friday morning. Spirit Airlines’ reservation system was affected, and United Airlines resumed some flights but warned of potential delays.

“Overnight, a third-party software outage impacted computer systems worldwide, including many of our applications, which resulted in us holding all aircraft at their departure airports,” United Airlines said in a statement. “Our computers and systems are gradually coming back online and we are resuming some flights, but schedule disruptions are expected to continue throughout Friday. We have issued a travel waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans via United.com or the United app.”

The travel waiver can be accessed [here].

According to FlightAware, the top four airlines hardest hit by delays are:

– Delta Air Lines: 469 cancellations (12%) and 627 delays (17%)
– American Airlines: 307 cancellations (8%) and 446 delays (12%)
– United Airlines: 223 cancellations (7%) and 512 delays (17%)
– Endeavor Air: 162 cancellations (24%) and 185 delays (27%)

Microsoft acknowledged service disruptions in the central United States on Thursday evening and is working on a fix.

The widespread Windows outages have been linked to a software update from cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike. It is believed the issues are not linked to a malicious cyberattack, cybersecurity officials say, but rather stem from a misconfigured update that CrowdStrike pushed out to its customers. Engineers from CrowdStrike posted to the company’s Reddit forum that it has seen “widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts” occurring across its software. The company advised a workaround for impacted systems and issued instructions to its customers in an advisory.

According to WIRED, the outages have had a massive impact on public services and businesses globally. Banks, airports, TV stations, healthcare organizations, hotels, and countless other businesses are facing widespread IT outages. Microsoft and CrowdStrike did not immediately respond to WIRED’s requests for comment on the outage.

Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity consultant, said the outages could result in “millions” being lost by organizations impacted who have had to halt their operations. He noted, “It reminds us about our dependence on IT and software. When a system has several software systems maintained by various vendors, this is equivalent to placing trust on them. They may be a single point of failure—like here, when various firms feel the impact.”

Hours after the issues started to emerge, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz confirmed that Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted by the update and said that its customers should refer to its support portal.

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