Why is my computer not working? Mass IT outage brings down Microsoft Windows, media sites and airports

Some 143 flights scheduled to depart UK airports on Friday have been cancelled amid the global IT outage, aviation analytics company Cirium said.

This equates to 4.6% of scheduled departures, the firm said, while 142 flights due to land in the UK were cancelled.

Globally 4,295 flights – or 3.9% of those scheduled – have been cancelled.

Heathrow Airport has said it is “working hard” to get passengers “on their way” following a major global IT outage.

“We continue to work with our airport colleagues to minimise the impact of the global IT outage on passenger journeys.

“Flights continue to be operational and passengers are advised to check with their airlines for the latest flight information,” a spokesperson for the airport said.

CrowdStrike’s chief executive has said the cybersecurity firm’s customers “remain fully protected” despite the ongoing global IT outage.

In a new statement posted to X, formerly Twitter, George Kurtz said: “Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.

“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.

“As noted earlier, the issue has been identified and a fix has been deployed. There was an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts.

“For the latest information that we will continuously update, please refer to the CrowdStrike website, my posts on LinkedIn, and my posts on X.

“I will continue to provide updates to our community and the industry as they become available.”

A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We are aware of a scenario in which customers experience issues with their machines causing a bug check (blue screen) due to a recent CrowdStrike update. We recommend customers to follow guidance provided by CrowdStrike.”

South Central Ambulance Service said it was experiencing increased demand on its 999 and NHS 111 services due to the global IT issues.

In a post on X, it said: “As usual, our 999 team will be prioritising patients in a serious or life-threatening condition.

“Patients not requiring such an immediate response may have to wait longer than usual to be seen by our ambulance team.

“If you have an urgent, not emergency, medical need rather than call 999 please make use of other local services, such as urgent treatment centres which remain open across our region until late this evening.

“You can also use 111 online, or call 111, to get advice and help.”

Thousands of airline passengers whose flights have been cancelled due to the global IT outage are being urged to leave crowded airports.

Aviation analytics company Cirium said 1,396 flights were cancelled globally on Friday, including 43 UK departures.

Ryanair, which said it was “forced to cancel a small number of flights today”, told passengers: “If your flight has been cancelled, we kindly request that you leave the airport as the IT outage means we cannot currently assist passengers at the airport.”

Edinburgh Airport said: “Anyone whose flight is cancelled is asked to please leave the airport and contact their airline directly.”

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said her department was “working at pace with industry and across Government on the issue”.

A traveller at Gatwick Airport said he had been queuing for more than three-and-a-half hours ahead of a flight to Miami, Florida.

UK air traffic control provider Nats said its systems are “operating normally”.

Friday is the busiest day of the year so far for UK air travel with 3,214 departing flights as thousands of families embark on summer holidays at the end of the academic year for many schools.

Several US carriers grounded flights, including United, American Airlines and Delta.

Train service information website National Rail Enquiries warned passengers of “widespread IT issues across the entire network”, although most train services ran as scheduled.

South Western Railway said all its ticket vending machines had stopped working due to IT issues.

A number of shops have reported not being able to take card payments amid a worldwide IT outage.

Customers across the country have faced issues with trying to pay using their cards, with some shops putting up “cash only” signs on their doors.

A spokesman for the supermarket Morrisons said there were some “isolated incidents” with payment systems this morning, which have now been resolved and systems are working normally.

Waitrose said it was taking contactless payments largely as normal, as well as still processing payments by chip and pin and cash.

A spokesman for the supermarket said it had been able to take card payments throughout the day, but had been “briefly limited on contactless payments”.

A shoe shop in Cambridge had taped a handwritten sign to its door, which read: “Due to global IT issue, cash only. Sorry for any inconvenience”.

Elsewhere, restaurants in Parliament appear to have been affected by the global IT issues.

Parliamentary catering services were only accepting cash payments on Friday morning, although cash machines in Westminster were still working.

A number of supermarkets, including Iceland and Asda, said they had been unaffected.

Microsoft has attempted to provide its users with some fixes to help - which included rebooting up to 15 times.

The tech company has said on its website: “We've received feedback from customers that several reboots (as many as 15 have been reported) may be required, but overall feedback is that reboots are an effective troubleshooting step at this stage.”

Antivirus company Crowdstrike has said that it “could be some time” before systems across the world are restored after a buggy update led to the chaos this morning.

Speaking to NBC, the company’s president George Kurtz said that the company were aware of the error and have put a fix into place.

However, he warned that it won’t be an instant fix for some, saying: “Some of the systems that aren’t recovering, we’re working with them, so it could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover, but it is our mission to make sure that every customer is fully recovered and we’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were and we’ll continue to protect them and keep the bad guys out of their systems.”

The Dart Charge service, which facilitates the toll charges for the Dartford Crossing, has also been impacted.

An update on X (formerly Twitter)) read: “A global IT incident is affecting parts of the Dart Charge service.

“Payments for crossings and top-ups are currently unavailable. You can still contact our call centres and access your account online. We're monitoring the situation and will provide updates as soon as possible.

As the NHS continues to battle system issues, the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust has declared a critical incident.

A statement on its website reads: “Royal Surrey has declared a critical incident due to external IT issues which are widely affecting services including ours. This issue has affected Varian, the IT system we use to deliver radiotherapy treatments.

“We hope these systems will be up and running soon and will directly contact patients who are due to have radiotherapy appointments if we are unable to deliver their treatments. Please attend your appointments unless you have heard otherwise.”

NHS Blood and Transplant has also urged patients to keep their blood donor appointments despite the chaos.

A spokesman said: “NHS Blood and Transplant are calling on donors to book and keep appointments to donate blood to boost NHS resilience at this time.

“There remains a particularly urgent need for O negative blood. Blood donation systems are not affected and we currently have a high number of appointments available at our donor centres in major towns and cities.”

Windows systems across the world were hit with the ‘BSoD’ - also known as the ‘Blue Screen of Death’.

This is a critical error screen that indicates the operating system, in this case Windows, can no longer operate safely.

Thousands would have woken up to this blue screen this morning, as seen below:

Find out more about how the mass IT outage might affect your train journeys, flight or GP appointment.

There are still impacts on some rail services this morning.

Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southern and Thameslink are all still reporting disruption.

National Rail said in a service update: “There are currently widespread IT issues across the entire network. This is due to a worldwide IT issue affecting multiple companies and industries.

“As a result, some train operators are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice train cancellations. Additionally, other key systems, including real-time customer information platforms, are also affected.”

All other train operators are unaffected.

Some of the biggest football teams in the country have been hit by the IT issues, with teams such as Manchester United unable to process ticket sales.

Fans were updated on X (formerly Twitter) by Man Utd, with staff saying: "Unfortunately, due to a global Microsoft Servers outage which is affecting many systems, including ours, this morning’s ticket release will be postponed until midday.

“The website will also remain unavailable until the issue is resolved. Further updates will be provided here, including any further potential delays.”

Other teams which have noted issues with ticketing sale systems including Crystal Palace, Blackburn, Plymouth Argyle and Preston North End.

Crowdstrike, the antivirus company which is believed to behind the mass IT outages across the world, has commented on the situation.

CrowdStrike president George Kurtz told followers on X (formerly Twitter) that the problem was caused by a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts”. He added:  “This is not a security incident or cyber attack. 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.

“We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

He also said that Mac and Linux user were unaffected by the update error.

The Liberal Democrats have urged the government to convene a Cobra meeting in response to the widespread IT issues.

The party’s Cabinet Office spokesperson Christine Jardine said: “The Government must call an urgent Cobra meeting to address the chaos being caused by these IT outages across the country.

“The public needs to be reassured that the disruption to their travel or their desperately needed GP appointments will be minimised.

“Getting critical infrastructure up and running again must be priority number one. The National Cyber Security Centre should also be working with small businesses and other organisations to help them deal with the outage.

“This once again lays bare the need to improve our digital infrastructure and truly modernise our economy in order to prevent the incidents from happening again.”

Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, referenced the outages in the Commons this morning while responding to the Covid-19 Inquiry findings.

He said: “Resilience isn’t just about another pandemic but the full range of risks that we face. And we’re reminded of that this morning as reports come in of a global IT outage affecting airlines, GP surgeries, banks, media organisations and other organisations.”

Huge queues have formed at UK airports as staff deal with the impacts of the mass IT outage - on what should be the busiest travel day of the year so far.

Friday, July 19 2024 had the highest number of flights scheduled to take-off in the UK since 2019, with over 3,200 departures. This is the same as a flight taking off every 27 seconds.

While air passenger will be looking to jet out, the IT outage has put an dampener on plans, with huge queues forming at airports across the country.

Gatwick, Luton and Edinburgh have all experienced long queues for passengers who have been forced to check in manually.

One passenger flying from Gatwick to Miami, Florida said that he had been queuing for more than three-and-a-half hours.

Dean Seddon, 42, from Plymouth, said: “There are just people everywhere, there must be 400 people in this queue for the check in desk I’m at… it’s just bedlam.

“It’s one of those things where you kind of know we’re not going to fly, but you don’t want to leave because you don’t know. (Staff are) doing the best they can but they don’t actually know when it’s going to be fixed, so it is frustrating, but you kind of feel for the staff as well.”

As we reported earlier, the NHS appeared to have been hit by the outages with GP surgeries across the country reporting that they were unable to access systems.

NHS England has now confirmed that there are impacts on the service, however 999 and emergency services are not currently impacted.

Pharmacies are also being hit, with a spokesman for the National Pharmacy Association saying: “We’re aware that due to global IT outages that services in community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today. We urge patients to be patient whilst visiting their pharmacy.

“We’re urgently raising this issue with the NHS England.”