An update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to a major IT outage on Friday, impacting businesses around the world.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted,” CEO George Kurtz said in a statement on X.
Financial services and general practitioners’ offices were disrupted on Friday, while TV broadcasters went offline as businesses worldwide grappled with an ongoing major IT outage. Air travel has been particularly hit, with planes grounded, services delayed and airports issuing advice to passengers.
Earlier on Friday, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike experienced a major disruption, the company told NBC, following an issue with its latest tech update.
The company’s CEO George Kurtz has since said that the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” stressing that Mac and Linux hosts are not affected.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he said on social media.
Separately, Microsoft cloud services were restored after an outage, the company said on Friday, even as many users continued to report issues.
Shares of both companies were losing ground in premarket trading on Friday morning.
American Airlines, which describes itself as the world’s largest, said a technology issue was affecting “multiple carriers,” while the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM said it had been “forced to suspend most” of its operations.
Spain’s airport authority AENA, meanwhile, warned travelers to expect delays due to an “incident in the computer system,” and U.K. airline Ryanair said it was experiencing disruption as a result of a third-party IT outage. It advised passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.
Beyond the travel sector, banks and financial companies around the world have reported issues, with the London Stock Exchange reporting problems with its data and news platform.
German finance giant Allianz said it was “experiencing a major outage that is impacting employees ability to log into their computers. It impacts multiple companies besides Allianz, specifically affecting the Windows login and is caused by an incident at our provider CrowdStrike.”
A Visa spokesperson said that although its ability to process payments does not appear to be affected, “we are aware of reports of people being unable to make payments and are working with our financial institution clients to understand any impact on their services to cardholders and merchants.”
NBC Universal is also being affected by the CrowdStrike outage.
