Live: massive Windows outage plunges banks, airlines and more into chaos around the world

A massive global IT outage is today causing chaos at banks, airlines, TV broadcasters and more, after Windows workstations were hit by 'blue screen of death' error messages that were caused by a CrowdStrike software update.

The first reported issues came from Australia, but were quickly followed by problems across the US, UK and more. We've seen major airlines included Delta and United stopping flights, TV networks like Sky News taken down in the UK, and widespread communications outages across Australia.

Some problems thankfully now appear to be easing, with the boss of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike George Kurtz now admitting on X (formerly Twitter) that the problems were caused by "a single content update for Windows hosts". He stated that the "issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed", but knock-on issues continue to hit airports, health services and more.

This story is developing – we'll bring you all the latest details as we get them below. You can also read our Windows Blue Screen of Death crisis explainer , but for now here's all the latest on the biggest, global IT problem we've seen for years...

What we know so far

• A huge global IT outage has caused chaos across banks, airports and more
• TV broadcasters, banks, health services and airlines have been affected
• CrownStrike boss says issues were caused by "a single content update for Windows hosts"
• A "fix has been deployed" but knock-on effects continue around the world

Good morning. Here's the latest on the global IT outage taking place right now.

Here's what Down Detector is currently showing in the US – with multiple companies impacted across all manner of industries including transport, banking, media and more.

The situation in the UK is every bit as severe, with Microsoft – and Microsoft 365 – Visa, BT and more all seemingly impacted by the outage.

Microsoft's own Service Status page states that everything is running normally right now, which clearly isn't the case.

"We're all good! Everything is up and running."

However, earlier in the day Microsoft did report that users might not have been able to access Microsoft 365, its cloud-based app service.

It seems the problem may stem from an update by the cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which is causing Windows PCs to display the Blue Screen of Death, and to then be unable to reboot.

An email sent to TechRadar and other publishers by Tesserent cyber solutions company appears to confirm that the issue is with CrowdStrike.

It states: "CrowdStrike have deployed a new content update which resolves the previously erroneous update and subsequent host issues. As your devices receive this update you may need to reboot for the changes to take effect and for the blue screen (BSOD) issues to be resolved.

"If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, the following steps can be used to workaround this issue:

"Workaround Steps:

"1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment

"2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

"3. Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

"4. Boot the host normally."

TechRadar has not yet been able to verify those steps independently.

Microsoft's Twitter account (Sorry, X, whatever) is reporting that it's still investigating issues but that it is working on fixing them.

That previous post was some eight hours ago, but one hour ago it stated that "Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions. More details can be found within the admin center under MO821132 and http://status.cloud.microsoft "

Airlines appear to be one of the hardest hit areas in this outage.

As well as the problems in the US, that have seen Delta and United ground flights, there are delays and problems everywhere from Japan – where the Narita airport outside Tokyo says JetStar, Jeju Air, Qantas, HK Express and Spring Japan all have issues with their systems – to India, where Delhi airport says some services have been temporarily impacted.

In terms of transport, it's not just planes that are suffering as a result of this Microsoft/Crowdstrike issue – in fact, far from it.

In the UK, Thameslink trains has put a statement on X stating: "⚠️ We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network. Our IT teams are actively investigating to determine the root cause of the problem.

We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations, particularly on the Thameslink and Great Northern networks."

The outage couldn't come at a worst time as schools in the UK and several other European countries will break today for the summer holidays, probably the busiest day of the year for airlines. Hundreds of thousands of passengers will be expected to travel over the next 24 hours to destinations across the globe.

The incident also happens a day after CHAPS, the global payment system that governs high value transactions, went down, putting tens of billions of dollars of business on hold.

Sky News is still down in the UK

If, like me, you turned on your TV this morning to watch Sky News, you'll have been greeted with this worrying message instead.

The channel hasn't been able to broadcast this morning due to the Windows workstations issues, during a time when it'd otherwise been reporting on, say, a massive global IT outage.

The presenter Jacquie Beltrao posted the below on X (formerly Twitter).

Far more worrying than TV news channels being down is the fact that doctor's surgeries in the UK are apparently unable to book appointments.

"MAJOR ISSUE – NO ACCESS TO CLINICAL SYSTEM – NATIONAL PROBLEM" is how Grimethorpe Surgery in Barnsley, England reported it.

This truly is a global outage – potentially one of the biggest we've ever seen. In fact, I've heard commentators refer to it as "the biggest IT outage ever".

In China, for instance, the South China Morning Post is reporting that there are massive queues at Hong Kong airport and that passengers are having to check in manually.

If you're due to fly anywhere today, good luck!

The list of companies seemingly impacted by this is the longest I've ever seen.

According to Down Detector in the US and UK, it's currently:

• Microsoft
• Microsoft 365
• BetMGM
• Amazon
• Visa
• Sainsbury's
• Tesco
• RyanAir
• Sky
• BT
• Ladbrokes
• Santander
• Nationwide
• Royal Mail

And the list just keeps getting longer.

I'd also suspect that the list might grow as the US wakes up and more people start discovering problems. Let's hope it's fixed soon.

So, who are Crowdstrike?

Crowdstrike is the biggest cybersecurity firm you've never heard of. One that like many operates in the shadows and is one of the most important cogs in the supply chain that links some of the biggest companies in the world.

It is essentially the watchdog and protector of websites and web services. Its popularity propelled it to mighty heights as it briefly surpassed a market capitalization of $100 billion just a few days ago.

Good news for gamers?

We have some good news for gamers at least, as it appears that Xbox Live is back online after an outage that lasted for over three hours. Owners of the Team Green machines were previously unable to sign into their accounts, use the online store, or join other players in online lobbies – forcing many of us to step outside for the first time in months.

Now, the official Xbox status page indicates that "all services" are currently "up and running." We booted up our own Xbox consoles to test this and can report that everything was functioning well, though some users on social media are suggesting that they are still experiencing issues.

It's little consolation, but those currently trapped in packed airports could now whittle down the hours in the queue with a cheeky game of Fortnite via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Back to healthcare, and we have more reports surfacing of UK NHS primary care services being disrupted, as well some hospital infrastructure worldwide.

GTD Healthcare , a major supplier of NHS services in the North of England, states “Unfortunately there is a national issue with EMIS Web – the clinical computer system used within GP practices. This will affect our ability to book appointments/consult with patients.  We apologise for the disruption. If you have a life-threatening medical emergency, please dial 999.

The Daily Mail is also reporting that Australia’s Triple Zero emergency service line is still in operation, but “some hospitals have been affected” in the country, although we don’t know to what extent.

Are hackers behind the global Windows IT crash?

Short answer: no. Early analysis of the situation point to an update that has gone very, very wrong. No hacker intervention needed.

It is not the first time that this has happened. A security analyst told TechRadar privately that "this is a major process breakdown, a combination of human and tech error, something that was obviously not tested properly," before adding, "don't take it as a criticism, something has clearly gone wrong that was not intended."

Even trillion-dollar companies – like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft – suffer wobbles from time to time. But none have impacted our lives, like the one we encountered today.

According to Toby Murray, associate professor at The University of Melbourne, Australia, the outage has been specifically linked to Crowdstrike's Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platform, Falcon.

Falcon is essentially a high-privilege piece of software designed to monitor and detect system intrusions – in other words, cyberattacks and malware – and then take action to respond to them. It's an oversimplification to just call Falcon (or any EDR platform) an antivirus program, but at the end of the day, it is designed to help keep businesses' computer systems safe from digital threats.

Because of this, though, Falcon has a lot of access to control elements of the system it's installed on. For example, it can shut off communications from a PC if it detects malware that is actively transmitting data to an external source. With that sort of control over the computers it's installed on – and Falcon is installed on a very large number of business systems – it makes sense that a Falcon malfunction could cause this sort of widespread outage.

In the UK, it's not just hospitals and airports that are suffering from the outage. Pubs, soccer clubs, and betting agencies have been hit, apparently leading to some local frustration about not being able to order a pint via app (although it's a bit early for that, surely?).

Over in Australia, the outage has affected a wide swathe of businesses and public services from police to local news teams – leading to this rather hilarious post on X from 10 News First:

CrowdStrike - a company on the grow

If you follow cybersecurity, you'll be well aware of who CrowdStrike are – as evidenced by the scale of the outage today, their software and systems help back up many of the world's biggest businesses.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company, which was founded in 2011, boasts nearly 8,000 workers – and will be a familiar sight to fans of Formula 1, having sponsored the Mercedes F1 team for several seasons, its logo portrayed clearly on the car's front wing as well as the driver suits.

KLM says it's had to "largely suspend operations"

Airlines have been some the hardest hit by today's global IT outage, with the Federal Aviation Administration issuing a "global ground stop" earlier today. Now the Dutch airline KLM has made statement on how it's hitting frustrated fliers.

It says "we’re working hard to resolve the problem, but that until then "we will have to largely suspend operations". As KLM says, that's something of a nightmare all-round "in the midst of the summer holiday season". Solidarity to anyone who was planning to jet off today.

Every cloud outage has a silver lining

On the bright side, it seems like corporate America is loving this. After all, what better day for a mass Blue Screen of Death attack than a Friday? The outage has been met with tangible glee by thousands of office workers across social media – although some have been left bemoaning the fact that their employer doesn't use Crowdstrike, and they're still going to have to work today.

Has your employer been hit by the Falcon/Microsoft outage? Did you log onto your personal computer to see a chilling blue hue this morning? Let us know on X/Twitter at @techradar !

The UK's National Health Service has some advice

The worst-case scenario for this global IT outage is the potentially life-threatening impact on health services. The UK's NHS has now issued a statement on what's happening, with its phone system fortunately unaffected.

An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.

“The NHS has long standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP. There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would."

The spokesperson added: “Patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it’s urgent, and otherwise please use 111 online or call 111."

Welcome to a summer of all dangers

Hackers all over the world will rejoice at today's chaotic start of the summer holidays (at least here in Europe). Sysadmins all over the world will have to cancel their breaks (or worst, come back from their holidays) to deal with the fallout of what is rapidly turning into the biggest tech catastrophe of all times, the sort of scenario Hollywood script writers could only dream of.

Expect cybercriminals to work double shifts to identify which key systems can be penetrated should CrowdStrike's security platform be disabled on some impacted systems. I predict that phishing attempts are going to grow exponentially over the summer as attempts to convince anyone and everyone to install that innocent CrowdStrike app or click on that totally innocuous crowdstri.ke URL.

More from Microsoft?

Microsoft, which has been worst hit by this outage, causing a knock-on across global systems, has issued a brief statement.

The company has said it is, "aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming," according to The Verge .

Some important US phone numbers

911 lines are down in areas of several US states, with Alaska confirmed to be the worst affected. Official Alaska State Troopers social media has posted a number of direct phone numbers for emergency calls only, as seen below.

Please stop blaming Bill Gates for this, folks

Users on Facebook and X/Twitter are ridiculing Bill Gates over this global outage, but to be fair this really isn't his fault.

Not only does the issue stem from a non-Microsoft product (Crowdstrike Falcon – although since Windows is the only OS affected, Microsoft does bear some part of the blame here), but Gates hasn't been CEO of Microsoft for more than two decades, even stepping down from the board of directors four years ago in 2020.

At this point his involvement with MS is minimal - go bother Satya Nadella instead, who has been notably silent on social media today.

Amazon Luna is down

Xbox Cloud Gaming might be back up and running, but that doesn't mean that every other cloud gaming service is currently functioning as intended. It looks as though Amazon Luna has been severely affected by the outage, leaving players unable to boot up any of their games. While we can't get into any games right now, even the Amazon Luna interface is currently sluggish, with long loading times even just when trying to navigate the store.

There's been no official word on this from Amazon yet, but we're noticing issues in both the US and UK. This will be undoubtedly be especially bad news for anyone who picked up one of the heavily discounted Luna Wireless Controllers over Amazon Prime Day. Maybe it's time to dig out an old-fashioned console and play some local games instead.

Light on the horizon?

Speaking of CEOs, CrowdStrike chief George Kurtz just posted an official comment on X, highlighting that the global outage is "not a security incident or cyberattack" and promising that his employees are "fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers".

Thankfully, it looks like outage reports on DownDetector have plateaued and are now starting to drop, meaning we might be approaching the end of this latest worldwide tech disaster.

What it's like at JFK airport right now

If you're not at an airport today, thank your lucky stars. Our colleague Kevin Addley (Future's SVP of Games, Entertainment, Technology and Sport) is currently trying to fly from New York City's JFK airport back to London – and is currently surrounded by confused crowds and screens showing the blue screen of death (as the photos below show).

Dozens of airports around the world have reported delays, including those in Berlin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Schipol, London Heathrow and more. But some, like London Gatwick, say that if you're planning to fly you should still arrive at your scheduled check-in time, despite the potential for delays.

All eyes on CrowdStrike

All financial markets are down this morning at the time of writing as companies scramble with the current chaotic situation caused by what seems to be a flaw in CrowdStrike Falcon.

The company reached its highest market capitalization on July 1st, hitting the $100 billion mark. Since then it saw its share price drop by nearly 12% as news broke about the software snafu. Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks, two rival companies, saw their stock price dip this morning.

It's not just Microsoft – AWS is affected, too

The outage continues to have knock-on effects across other platforms, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) also reporting issues related to its usage of Windows systems.

"We continue to work on resolving the connectivity issues and reboots of Windows Instances, Windows Workspaces and Appstream Applications related to a recent update to the Crowdstrike agent (csagent.sys), which is resulting in a stop error (BSOD) within the Windows operating system," the company wrote in a service health update post .

AWS is recommending customers reboot their EC2 instances to try and recover access, and apply the latest CrowdStrike update as soon as possible.

"AWS services and network connectivity continue to operate normally," the company added.

How easy is it for a minor code tweak to bring the world to a screeching halt

Andreas Theodorou, who is our VPN expert at TechRadar, chimed in: “The CrowdStrike issue shows just how easy it is for a minor code tweak to bring the world to a screeching halt. All of this due to a supposed faulty channel file suggests a lack of care – surely this shouldn't have passed code review?

"This event has me worried because the sheer magnitude of its impact shows just how devastating a supply chain attack can be. IT services and suppliers should be increasingly diligent, and I would recommend investing in intruder detection software.”

What a shame this isn't real...

Everyone who isn't at an airport or working for a company hit by today's outages is seeing the lighter side of the problems.

Unfortunately, the Las Vegas Sphere isn't currently showing a Blue Screen of Death, but that hasn't stopped the photo below from flying around social media...

Could Charlotte have helped?

CrowdStrike’s flagship software platform, Falcon, uses an AI generative security analyst called Charlotte, to “accelerate investigation times and elevate everyone on your team — from novice to expert”.

Today’s cluster**** is essentially a software update gone very, very wrong and many will wonder why more extensive tests were not done to avoid such a calamity. Could artificial intelligence, aided by machine learning, have helped accelerating the testing process ahead of roll out?

Microsoft claims underlying problem is fixed

I'm seeing reports that Microsoft is claiming that the "underlying cause has been fixed."

The company also confirmed that Windows 365 Cloud PCs were affected by a recent broken CrowdStrike Falcon sensor software update, and that the cause has been fixed for Microsoft services (Microsoft 365 apps and Xbox Live went down earlier today).

This is promising news, but the fix might still take time to roll out globally.

As we mentioned in our Windows Blue Screen of Death crisis: what we know so far explainer, some security experts have released statements saying that rolling out the fix could take a while.

Tom Kidwell, Co-founder, Ecliptic Dynamics and former British Army and UK Government intelligence specialist, got in touch to say that "The outage impacting Windows devices this morning appears to have been caused by a driver update by CrowdStrike, bricking older windows devices and servers, which will be worst hit. Unfortunately for CrowdStrike, if that is the case, it could be nauseating to fix. Due to the nature of the update, an individual from every organisation will need to boot into safe mode, remove the issue file/driver, and then either roll back or update to a new version, something CrowdStrike will need to release very quickly."

“This is about people, process and technology”

We've also got some more expert commentary about what went wrong and how it could be fixed.

Tesserent cyber solutions by Thales was one of the first organizations to propose a workaround for the Crowdstrike software meltdown. Mark Jones, senior partner at the firm, told us “this is about people, process and technology. Technology can fail but what underpins it is good people and good process.

CrowdStrike has issued a rapid automatic fix and also released manual steps to help organisations restore normal operation. If an organisation can’t issue the automatic solution and needs to undertake the manual steps then that will be more time consuming to deploy across their environment. Technology updates happen regularly and this underscores the need for organisations to have business continuity plans in place for when technology fails unexpectedly so they can get their operations restored to normal as fast as possible.”

Even Formula 1 affected

As we noted earlier, sports fans might know CrowdStrike from its sponsorship of the Mercedes F1 Formula 1 team. The partnership also sees the company supply Mercedes with software and services, and it seems the team has been affected by the issues ahead of the first practice session for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

RaceFans says a Mercedes spokesperson has confirmed the team is manually addressing the problem on each computer it uses, with other teams which use Mercedes engines (McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams) also affected.

“We are working closely with our partners at CrowdStrike to mitigate any impact,” the Mercedes spokesperson added.

Kaspersky throws shade

In what is a rather... bold move, security company Kaspersky has put out a rather cheeky tweet about the problems facing people using rival CrowdStrike's services.

Why do I call it 'bold'. For a start, a security company using an ongoing issue affecting people across the globe to score points against a rival isn't a great look. Keeping people secure is supposed to be cyber security firms' number one priority, which is why they often work together and share information despite also being rivals.

Also to say that using Kaspersky products means you won't ever see a Blue Screen of Death is quite a big claim, and as people have been keen to point out underneath that tweet, it's not true.

Finally, Kaspersky has recently been banned from selling products in the US due to its Russian origins. So, the company isn't in the strongest position to crow about the failures of a competitor.

As I thought, Kaspersky's tweet isn't going down too well.

I'm seeing a lot of reports about travel chaos, especially at Airports. If you are traveling today, it's definitely worth going to the website of the airline you'll be using to see what advice they give.

While it might be advisable to get to the airport earlier than usual, a lot of photos I'm seeing suggest there's a lot of crowds and chaos, so you might be best holding off until systems are all back online. Again, your airline's website or social media channels should have more information and guidance.

Other forms of public transport such as trains are also affected across the globe.

Could deliveries be affected?

One knock-on effect of this could be delayed deliveries across the world, according to Parcelhero’s Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T. "Delayed flights and issues with IT systems at airports will impact airfreight. Not only will slots for dedicated airfreight flights be disrupted, but many international goods and packages are transported not only in specially designed cargo planes but also in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. 1,000 flights globally were reported to have been cancelled by Friday mid-morning."

Parcelhero is a price comparison website for courier services, so will likely have a good idea of the impact this could have - it certainly makes sense: if airplanes and trains are delayed or cancelled for travellers, it's likely that's also happening for freight services as well.

With many people expecting their Prime Day purchases to arrive in the coming days, that could be a big blow.

Are we too reliant on the same software?

One of the main reasons why a bug in a single update has caused so much widespread chaos across the globe is because so many institutions and services rely on CrowdStrike's software.

If there was a greater mix of similar services that businesses use, then the impact might not have been so catastrophic.

Jake Moore, Global Security Advisor at ESET, a cyber security firm, as stated that "Another aspect of this incident relates to “diversity” in the use of large-scale IT infrastructure. This applies to critical systems like operating systems (OSes), cybersecurity products, and other globally deployed (scaled) applications. Where diversity is low, a single technical incident, not to mention a security issue, can lead to global-scale outages with subsequent knock-on effects."

Of course, breaking up CrowdStrike's apparent dominance would benefit a rival like ESET, but Moore's point is still important, and in the aftermath of this global situation, many businesses will be considering alternatives, I'm sure.

Services continuing to go back online

Looking at DownDetector , a useful resource for keeping an eye on services that customers are reporting as having issues, it seems quite a few services are recovering from the incident, with user reports about problems affecting Xbox Live, Microsoft 365 and Ryanair all beginning to drop.

This is encouraging, but some services, such as Amazon, Whatsapp and Ladbrokes in the UK are having increased reports of problems. This might be unrelated to the ongoing CrowdStrike problems, but it's safe to say this is far from over.