Global CrowdStrike Outage Affecting Microsoft Systems Hits San Diego

Early Friday morning, a global tech outage hit major businesses across medical, law enforcement and travel sectors all over the world. While Microsoft’s services have seemed to recover, many in San Diego are still reeling from the aftermath.

The outage has been pinned to a routine software update gone wrong at CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that is widely used by businesses and government agencies that use Microsoft systems.

According to NBC’s live updates, data from Cirium showed around 4,300 flights were canceled worldwide as of 9 a.m. Pacific time due to the global IT outage.

The San Diego International Airport, one of many affected, warned travelers earlier Friday to check in with airlines before coming to the airport .

Some 80 flights were delayed as of 9 a.m., and at least 37 flights were canceled as of Friday afternoon, according to Flight Aware, which tracks aircraft.

The San Diego County’s Sheriff Office was affected overnight, with officers having to limit jail bookings for a few hours while waiting for backup systems. Fortunately, essential services such as 9-1-1 communications were not impacted by the outage.

The San Diego Superior Court worked through technical difficulties overnight and managed to get most courtrooms operational by 10 a.m. in the morning. According to the court, minor delays may still be experienced at this time but offices should be fully operational by noon.

Those with a court date Friday were asked to still report to the courtroom as scheduled. Remote appearances over Microsoft Teams may still be affected.

The San Diego Union Tribune reported that travelers at the Tijuana airport and Cross Border Xpress were affected by the outage as well, with both asking travelers to arrive hours in advance.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry was chaotic Friday morning with pedestrian lines experiencing three-hour waits and cars in the SENTRI lines reported waiting about an hour and a half.

Marina del Pilar Ávila, governor of Baja California, asked travelers around 10 a.m. to reconsider border crossing plans until systems were completely functional.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that despite the processing delays caused by the outage, its applications such as CBP One, Simplified Arrival, and Global Entry were unaffected and operational.

This story was updated at 5:51 p.m., July 19, 2024.

City News Service contributed to this report.