State responding to global outage that grounded flights, affected banks and business

New Jersey has responded to a global outage that grounded flights, disrupted banks and slowed the work of businesses and critical services including 911 call centers.

The massive outage was caused by what was supposed to be a routine update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Microsoft Windows hosts are affected but Mac and Linux hosts are not, CEO George Kurtz tweeted.

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack," he stressed. "The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website."

Gov. Phil Murphy said the state's response started early Friday morning.

"We activated our State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) as of 3 a.m. in response to these disruptions and have provided guidance to relevant executive branch agencies on how to address the situation," Gov. Phil Murphy said. "We are also engaging county and local governments, 911 call centers, and utilities to assess the impact and offer our assistance.

"I’ve asked my senior team, including Director of the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Laurie Doran, New Jersey State Police Superintendent Colonel Pat Callahan and Chief Technology Officer Chris Rein to provide additional updates during the course of the day as the situation evolves."