Summary
Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
George Kurtz, the founder and chief executive of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has said the company is “deeply sorry for impact that we’ve caused to customers” after a flawed software update prompted a global IT outage. Kurtz told NBC’s Today Show in the US that the problem was down to a bug in a single update. “We identified this very quickly and remediated the issue,” he said, adding that CrowdStrike was now “working with each and every customer to make sure that we can bring them back online”.
Businesses including banks, airlines, railways, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets have been taken offline after blue screen of death error screens were seen on Windows workstations across the globe. Users on the subreddit for the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike reported issues in India, the United States and New Zealand.
GP surgeries across England hit by the outage have said the issue “will have a big effect”. GP practices said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments due to the major global IT outage. Surgeries took to social media to report they cannot access the EMIS Web system. It is understood that NHS hospitals are currently unaffected by the outage.
Airports in Germany have also been hit by the outages, causing major delays at the start of school holidays for many regions. Air traffic at Berlin’s BER came to a complete halt in the early morning hours of Friday, according to public broadcaster RBB due to a server breakdown that triggered several emergency systems to kick in.
The dollar rose and stock markets fell in jittery trading today, as the global IT outage unnerved investors. The group that runs the London Stock Exchange suffered an outage that affected user access to some of its products, and Refinitiv was down earlier. By around midday in Europe, the company said its services had been restored.
China’s flag carrier Air China and other major airlines have not been affected by the global tech outage that disrupted operations in multiple industries on Friday due to the use of different systems, according to state media CGTN. Meanwhile, Wizz Air said it has suspended its fees for airport check-in as its online systems are unavailable due to the IT outage.
New York City’s subway system agency, the MTA, said that “some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline due to a worldwide technical outage”. It added that train and bus service is unaffected.
The White House said that it was “looking into” the outage, according to a spokesperson speaking to CNN. “We’re aware of the incident and are looking into the issue and impacts,” the full statement said.
The outage also disrupted the European energy market’s liquidity and affected hedge funds and other traders. Traders were unable to access their computers and contact brokers, although the issues are gradually being resolved.
Customers across the UK 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. Waitrose said it was taking contactless payments largely as normal, as well as still processing payments by chip and pin and cash.
Elon Musk claimed in a post on X that he had “deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems”. He did not offer any proof for this claim or specify what it entailed.
Russian officials said that their country’s vital systems had not suffered outages anywhere near as bad as those in the UK, US, and much of the rest of the world. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022, Microsoft and other software providers have drawn down their operations in the country.
CrowdStrike saw it share value fall precipitously after disclosing that its software update was the source of the debilitating global outage. At midday, CRWD had dropped by 12%. The company’s update interacted negatively with computers running Microsoft Windows.
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CrowdStrike CEO issues statement
CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, issued a statement on the company’s website late on Friday afternoon, in which he apologized once again for the outage and said that CrowdStrike was working to help restore systems.
“Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike,” Kurtz said. “As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
Updated
With the end of the global IT outage nowhere near in sight, various industries have been affected including travel, health and financial systems.
The Guardian’s Julia Kollewe, Kat Lay, Gwyn Topham and Simon Goodley report:
Airlines, railways, hospitals, television stations, sports clubs and financial systems were among the sectors hit by the technology glitches, prompting national governments to convene emergency meetings and stock markets to fall.
The US’s Federal Aviation Administration shut down operations due to the outage. There were about 110,000 commercial flights scheduled worldwide on Friday. By 6am ET, nearly 1,400 of them had been cancelled, according to reports …
Patients had important hospital appointments cancelled at the last minute in countries including the UK, Germany and Israel – with the Royal Surrey NHS trust, in the south of England, declaring a critical incident and cancelling radiotherapy appointments scheduled for Friday morning.
Doctors’ surgeries in the UK said they were unable to access patient records or book appointments, as they reported via social media that they were unable to access online systems…
For the full story, click here:
Updated
The Guardian’s voting rights reporter Sam Levine is currently at Milwaukee airport where he has been waiting in line for up to an hour.
According to Levine, who is returning from a reporting trip to the Republican national convention earlier this week, several passengers in line have also come from the convention, with some donning Donald Trump memorabilia.
Levine also reports:
“The Delta customer service hold music has become the soundtrack to this line.”
Absolute chaos at the Milwaukee airport - one man said he’d been waiting an hour and a half in this line to get through security pic.twitter.com/Tu4lNcAnhb
— Sam Levine (@srl) July 19, 2024
Someone just started a joking chant in line saying “four more hours!”
— Sam Levine (@srl) July 19, 2024
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What is CrowdStrike? The company behind the outage
The global technology outage was the result of a botched software update from the American cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Founded in 2011, the company has become one of the largest cybersecurity providers for businesses around the world.
CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz has apologized for the outage but stated it could be “some time” before the affected systems fully recover.
Read an explainer on the company here:
Elon Musk weighs in on CrowdStrike outage
Elon Musk claimed in a post on X that he had “deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems”.
He did not offer any proof for this claim or specify what it entailed.
We just deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems, so no rollouts at all
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2024
Updated
Mayor of Portland, Oregon, issues emergency declaration due to global outage
The mayor of Portland, Oregon, has issued an emergency declaration as a result of the global IT outage.
In a statement on Friday, the office of the Portland mayor, Ted Wheeler, said:
Mayor Ted Wheeler issued an Emergency Declaration on July 19, 2024 due to a problem with Microsoft Operating Systems using Crowdstrike Endpoint Protection.
The issue is causing computer outages and affecting multiple systems globally, impacting City servers in the City Data Centers as well as employee computers, with impacts to VPN connection and Single Sign On (SSO) to cloud services. City services that rely on Microsoft Operating Systems using Crowdstrike Endpoint Protection, including certain essential City service providers, are impacted by the problem including emergency communications.
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Chaotic, crowded scenes at airports across the world – in photos
Blake Montgomery
Mexico City
Toronto
New York City
Budapest
Hong Kong
London Gatwick
Milwaukee, site of the Republican National Convention
Atlanta
Singapore
Kuala Lumpur
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Along with several other court systems across the country including Maryland’s, Manhattan’s court systems have also been hit by the global IT outage:
Updated
Russia, walled off by sanctions on tech, says it's doing fine amid global outage
Russian officials said Thursday that their country’s vital systems had not suffered outages anywhere near as bad as those in the UK, US, and much of the rest of the world.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022, Microsoft and other software providers have drawn down their operations in the country.
In retaliation, the Kremlin has gone after them, speeding up the decreases in their operations, their departures, and the isolation of Russian digital systems.
Russia’s digital ministry issued a statement that read:
The situation once again highlights the significance of foreign software substitution.
Mikhail Klimarev of the the Internet Protection Society, a non-governmental organization, told Reuters:
CrowdStrike has not provided any services in Russia since February 2022.
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Crowdstrike's stock price is plummeting amid the global outage
The American cybersecurity company Crowdstrike saw it share value fall precipitously after disclosing that its software update was the source of the debilitating global outage.
At midday, CRWD had dropped by 12%. The company’s update interacted negatively with computers running Microsoft Windows.
In an interview with CNBC, Crowdstrike’s CEO said the timeline for fixing the issues “could be hours, could be a bit longer” and said many customers would need to manually reboot their machines.
Microsoft issued guidance saying that some customers had seen success by rebooting their PCs as many as 15 times.
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.
Around two-thirds of GP practices in Northern Ireland have been impacted by the global IT outage, PA Media has reported.
Practices which have been affected are being asked to revert to “established paper-based processes where necessary” and are operating on an emergency appointment basis only.
Meanwhile, the airline Ryanair said it had been forced to cancel a small number of flights and there has been disruption to vehicle testing services in the Republic of Ireland.
New York state regulators urged banks and companies to be on high-alert amid the global tech outage on Friday, saying it is monitoring institutions and market events and working with other state and federal regulators.
The New York State Department of Financial Services “reminds all regulated entities to be vigilant at this time. Threat actors have been known to launch attacks during periods when IT and security staff are distracted, especially through social engineering,” it said in a statement.
The department supervises more than 3,000 financial institutions in New York, including banks and trust companies.
A global tech outage is creating challenges for doctors and hospitals in Canada and the government is working to support health infrastructure, the country’s health minister Mark Holland said.
“We are aware of the IT outage and the challenges it is creating for health care professionals and hospitals. We are actively monitoring the situation and working with partners across Canada to support our health infrastructure,” Holland said in a statement.
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.
The CrowdStrike outage caused havoc across a swathe of industries spanning the global economy.
Airlines, railways, hospitals, television stations, sports clubs and financial systems were among the sectors hit by the technology glitches, prompting national governments to convene emergency meetings and stock markets to fall.
Julia Kollewe, Kat Lay, Gwyn Topham and Simon Goodley run through it all in this handy explainer:
The PA news agency has reported a statement by Microsoft. A spokesperson for Microsoft 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.”
In England, the South East Coast ambulance service has declared a “business continuity incident” and is experiencing “increased pressure” across its 999 and 111 services due to the global IT outage.
A spokesperson for the service said:
The majority of our infrastructure is unaffected and we are continuing to respond to patients.
However, we do not have access to some external NHS services and have declared a business continuity incident to manage our response.”
CrowdStrike chief executive says cybersecurity firm’s customers 'remain fully protected'
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, 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.”
Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
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…
Updated
In England, 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.”
Due to the global IT issue impacting some parts of the NHS, we are seeing increased demand on our 999 and NHS 111 services.
— South Central Ambulance Service (@SCAS999) July 19, 2024
As usual, our 999 team will be prioritising patients in a serious or life-threatening condition.
1/3 pic.twitter.com/P33Q7xIpmG
The ambulance service added:
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.”
Additionally, the London ambulance service (LAS) said it has experienced “huge increases” in the number of calls to its 999 and 111 services.
Chief executive of LAS, Daniel Elkeles, said:
In fact, by 2pm today, we had received more than 3,000 999 calls and 3,000 calls to our 111 services – this is a third higher than we would usually receive in a full 24 hour period.”
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The PA news agency reports that 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 also grounded flights on Friday, including United, American Airlines and Delta.
Thousands of airline passengers whose flights have been cancelled due to the global IT outage are being urged to leave crowded airports. More than 40 UK flights have been cancelled and many more were delayed after the technical glitch.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said 1,396 flights were cancelled globally on Friday, including 43 UK departures.
Updated
The UK health secretary, Wes Streeting, has urged people to “bear with” GPs amid a major IT outage that has caused “considerable disruption” to appointment bookings and other services.
Thousands of GP practices have been affected, with NHS England confirming there has been an issue with the EMIS Web system, which is understood to be used by about 60% of practices in England.
According to the PA news agency, about 3,700 GP practices may be affected. People trying to access the NHS app have also encountered problems.
In a post on X, Streeting wrote:
This is having a particular impact on GP appointments and electronic prescribing. Please bear with your local GPs if they’re grappling with this on top of normal pressures.
My department is working closely with colleagues across government.”
Updated
Industry expert Adam Smith of BCS (the Chartered Institute for IT), warned that it could even take “weeks” for all computers and systems to be fully restored.
He told the PA news agency:
The fix will have to be applied to many computers around the world. So if computers are getting blue screens and endless loops, it could be more difficult and take days and weeks.
Microsoft Windows isn’t the main OS for mission-critical systems, that’s Linux – and so this could have been much worse.”
CrowdStrike had earlier confirmed that Linux and Apple Mac systems had not been affected by the bug (see 11.11am BST).
Officials will hold another meeting on Friday to discuss the IT outage, Pat McFadden said, as he indicated UK government services are “largely unaffected now”.
The cabinet minister told the BBC:
Cobra officials met this morning. I’ve been kept updated about the situation throughout the day, the prime minister has been kept informed. We will have a further meeting later today to make sure we are across the situation.
But as far as government services goes, the online services that government provides, these are largely unaffected now, and it’s important that’s the case because a lot of vulnerable people depend on these services.”
Asked about the need for back-up systems after GP surgeries were hit, McFadden said:
What this incident shows is just how dependent we are on IT systems. And when something like this happens, how fast and how widespread the effects are … It’s really important, because we’re so reliant on these systems, that the fix is put in place as soon as possible.”
The chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster told the BBC:
We’ve had a major global IT outage today, causing huge inconvenience around the world, particularly for people travelling, for media organisations and for some parts of the health care system.
It’s not a security attack, it’s not a cyber-attack. The cause appears to be a software error in an update. So the cause has been identified and a fix is being put in place. But we’re very conscious that people are still being inconvenienced by this, not just here in the UK, but in many other countries too.”
Pressed on what the government can do to help people, he said the “first thing we always want to identify is the cause” and then “to make sure that a fix is put in place and that the inconvenience that is being felt comes to an end as soon as possible”.
Ryanair urged passengers whose flights have been cancelled to leave the airport.
The airline said in a statement:
Unfortunately, we’ve been forced to cancel a small number of flights today due to this global third-party IT outage.
Affected passengers have been notified and are advised to log into their myRyanair account once systems are back online to see their options.
A full list of cancellations is available at http://ryanair.com. 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.
We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused by this global third-party IT outage, and we are working hard to minimise disruption and keep passengers informed.”
IT outage hits health services around the world
Emergency phone lines went down in some places and appointments for surgery and radiotherapy had to be cancelled as the IT outage hit health services around the world, writes our global health correspondent Kat Lay.
Hospitals and clinics reported returning to paper charts and handwritten prescriptions in order to keep services running, as they became unable to access electronic medical records.
In the UK, NHS England said the majority of GP practices were affected because the issue had hit appointment and patient record system EMIS.
A spokesperson said there was no known impact on 999 or emergency services, adding:
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.
Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, said:
Outages like this affect our access to important clinical information about our patients, as well as our ability to book tests, make referrals, and inform the most appropriate treatment plan.”
A spokesman for the National Pharmacy Association said pharmacies were affected, with disruption to the access of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries.
The Royal Surrey Foundation Trust declared a critical incident, saying the IT system used to deliver radiotherapy treatments had been affected. Morning appointments were cancelled, and while they resumed in the afternoon, it said it expected disruption to run into next week.
Reproductive healthcare charity Bpas, which provides abortion care, said its phone lines had been disrupted, but that appointments already booked would be unaffected.
Some hospitals in Germany and the Netherlands cancelled operations, Others in Israel and the US said they were also having issues, often related to access to electronic medical records.
In the US, the emergency 911 lines went down in parts of Alaska, with officials posting alternative phone numbers on social media. There were similar issues reported in other states, including New Hampshire and Ohio.
Updated
NHS patients turned away as Microsoft IT outages hit GP surgeries
The global IT outages are causing serious problems for the NHS, including GP surgeries, with some forced to turn away patients with routine appointments and see only those classed as an emergency.
Family doctor practices are experiencing major disruption because they cannot access patients’ records or refer them on for tests or appointments at their local hospital.
“Our members are telling us that today’s outage is causing considerable disruption to GP practice bookings and IT systems,” said Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs.
“Outages like this affect our access to important clinical information about our patients, as well as our ability to book tests, make referrals and inform the most appropriate treatment plan.”
Impact on banks and hedge funds: 'Some people had to go home' – Bloomberg
The outage also disrupted the European energy market’s liquidity and affected hedge funds and other traders.
Traders were unable to access their computers and contact brokers, although the issues are gradually being resolved.
The outage, which has affected Microsoft Windows devices, meant traders to experienced difficulties logging into their computers, using messenger apps, and sourcing critical data, according to reports from Montel News. Even so, energy companies across Europe say that their operations remain largely unaffected.
A representative from the London Stock Exchange Group indicated that the outage temporarily disrupted access to the company’s data and messenger systems, which are widely used by energy market participants. Many LSEG employees were unable to log into their computers, significantly affecting market liquidity.
A Netherlands-based trader said that access to brokers was the primary issue, with only one broker operating initially. Futures exchanges EEX and ICE continued to function normally, minimising the overall impact, although EEX warned clients about potential login and trading issues.
Among energy brokers, only Tradition was operational during early trading, while others, including GFI, Griffin Markets, Spectron, and BGC, were unavailable.
Traded volumes for German power and Dutch TTF gas on ICE Endex and EEX remained stable, though Italian power volumes saw a decline of approximately 15%. A French trader reported significant disruptions at his firm, while a German power trader said his firm’s intraday team had other solutions in place and was not affected.
Bloomberg TV reports that “some people had to go home”.
Hedge funds have not been able to process certain trades, it said.
"Some people had to go home"
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) July 19, 2024
Bankers across the world have been hit by the global tech outage, with everything from deals to commutes affected@sonalibasak breaks down the impact on global finance: https://t.co/kDa0C0KrLr pic.twitter.com/hz2G7q8rA9
Some UK shops put up 'cash only' signs
More on the UK shops that are unable to take card payments because of the global IT outage, reverting to “cash only”.
Customers across the UK 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 this morning, although cash machines in Westminster were still working.
A number of supermarkets, including Iceland and Asda, said they had been unaffected.
Airports, health services and US firms knocked offline
Airports, health services and businesses across the US have been knocked offline by the Microsoft outage caused by a CrowdStrike software update. Here’s what we know so far about impacts on the US:
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down operations due to the outage. There were about 110,000 commercial flights scheduled worldwide on Friday. By 6am ET, nearly 1,400 of them had been cancelled, according to reports.
The FAA said that it is “closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at US airlines.” It added: “Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved.”
Long lines were forming at major US airports, as New York, Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago airports were among those facing major delays as airlines struggled to process travelers. NBC news reports departure screens and check-in systems have failed and delays are expected to keep going up.
In Alaska, 911 services were affected by the CrowdStrike outage. State troopers wrote: “Due to a nationwide technology-related outage, many 911 and non-emergency call centers are not working correctly across the state of Alaska.”
The White House said that it is “looking into” the outage, according to a spokesperson speaking to CNN. “We’re aware of the incident and are looking into the issue and impacts,” the full statement said.
New York City’s subway system agency, the MTA, said that “some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline due to a worldwide technical outage”. It added that train and bus service is unaffected.
You can follow the latest on our US blog here:
Updated
Travellers have been describing “mayhem” and “chaos” at Edinburgh Airport, as those whose flights have been cancelled are being urged to leave the airport to avoid overcrowding, reports our Scotland correspondent Libby Brooks.
Passengers have been posting images of snaking queues and hallways rammed with waiting travellers. The airport is also urging would-be passengers not to travel to the airport without checking the status of their flights first.
Scotland’s other airports so far remain largely unaffected, with a small number of airlines moving to manual check ins and some shops are only accepting cash payments.
Train services in Scotland are also unaffected at present: Scotrail says:
Train services are operating normally, and we are working with industry partners to understand the cause and undertake further checks to all our systems.
A few football clubs have warned that their ticketing systems are under pressure, with Celtic FC announcing they are postponing ticket sales, as did Manchester United in England.
CrowdStrike chief executive 'deeply sorry' for global impact of flawed software update
George Kurtz, the founder and chief executive of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has said the company is “deeply sorry for impact that we’ve caused to customers” after a flawed software update prompted a global IT outage.
Kurtz told NBC’s Today Show in the US that the problem was down to a bug in a single update. “We identified this very quickly and remediated the issue,” he said, adding that CrowdStrike was now “working with each and every customer to make sure that we can bring them back online”.
Kurtz said there had been a “negative interaction” between the update and Microsoft’s operating system, which had then caused computers to crash, sparking the global outage, which remains ongoing.
Asked how one faulty update could cause such global chaose, he said: “We have to go back and see what happened here, our systems are always looking for the latest attacks from adversaries that that are out there.”
He made clear that there was no possibilty it was a cyber-attack. However, although the problem had been identified and a fix issued, Kurtz said “it could be some time for some systems” to return to normal, stressing that they would not “just automatically recover”.
Updated
Royal Mail is experiencing technical issues across some of its IT systems as part of the outage.
The UK postal service operator said its inbound customer service phone lines are not operating at present, and some of the applications that its customer experience and account teams use are not currently available.
It said collection, processing and delivery of items across UK is taking place as usual, though there may be some impact on services, while Royal Mail shipping solutions, including click and drop, are working normally for customers to print labels and send items.
Updated
The National Health Service’s blood donation agency has urged people in Britain to keep their appointments to give blood, saying it had been contacted by members of the public wondering if sessions they were still going ahead amid reports of the IT outage hitting some NHS services.
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.
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Today’s global Microsoft IT outage could impact company payroll and the ability for businesses across the nation to pay their employees.
Melanie Pizzey, CEO and gounder of the Global Payroll Association, said:
We’ve been contacted by numerous clients already today who have been unable to access their payroll software due to the Microsoft outage and others who have been urged to log out with immediate effect.
Depending on the length of this outage, it could have very serious implications for businesses across the nation, particularly those who process payroll on a weekly basis. Furthermore, we could see a backlog with regard to processing payrolls for the coming month end which may delay employees from receiving their monthly wage.
At best, it will require those managing payroll to work overtime to rectify the issue, but the good news is that it doesn’t seem to be a cyber attack. This means that the sensitive employee details held within payroll should be safe, although we’re seeing many companies understandably take action to minimise such a threat as a precaution.
The worldwide IT crisis was discussed by UK government officials who attended a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee, as we reported earlier.
The meeting heard there has been no known impact on 999 or emergency services.
The prime minister did not attend the Cobra meeting as he was hosting the Ukrainian president at a meeting the Cabinet at the time.
A spokesperson for Keir Starmer said they were unaware of the problem having any impact on government services.
We are certainly aware of the disruption this has caused to business and to those particiualrly looking to travel today. We are keeping in closely monitoring the situation and making sure the relevant industries can use the support we can provide.
Dollar set for weekly gain, stocks down amid IT outage
The dollar rose and stock markets fell in jittery trading today, as the global IT outage unnerved investors.
The group that runs the London Stock Exchange suffered an outage that affected user access to some of its products, and Refinitiv was down earlier. By around midday in Europe, the company said its services had been restored.
The pound, which earlier this week hit a one-year high above $1.30, fell by 0.2% today to $1.2921.
The FTSE 100 index in London lost 0.5% or 43 points to 8,161, while the German Dax and the French CAC traded down by a similar amount,, and the FTSE MiB in Milan slid by 0.7%.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency against six other major currencies, rose by 0.2% to a high of 104.4, and is set for a modest weekly gain after two weeks of losses.
Emergency Cobra meeting held at official level – Downing Street
An emergency Cobra meeting was held at official-level – rather than ministers – this morning to discuss the IT chaos, Downing Street said.
A No 10 spokeswoman told reporters:
We recognise the impact this is having on services and the Government is working closely with the respective sectors and industries on this issue, which is affecting services not only across the UK but also globally.
Officials have met in the Cobra unit on this this morning and of course are updating ministers regularly on this issue.
She said she was not aware of plans for a Cobra gathering with ministers present. Asked why Sir Keir Starmer did not chair the meeting of the committee, she said:
The Prime Minister’s had bilaterals with President Zelensky and Cabinet this morning, but all ministers including the Prime Minister are being kept informed with the latest.
The spokeswoman also said she is not aware of any government business being hit by the outage.
Staff at London Stansted Airport handed out bottles of water to people queuing on the hot July day, as a global IT outage caused delays.
Carol Murphy, 58, a charity worker, of Ealing in west London, who was queuing inside the terminal building for a Ryanair flight to go on a 10-day holiday to Vienna, said the situation was “nobody’s fault”.
They keep coming round and people who’ve got a flight upcoming, they send them forward.
I think they’re doing quite well.
Student Jack O’Leary, who was queuing for a Ryanair flight to Dublin to go on holiday, said:
We’re quite understanding - it’s a global outage and everything’s pretty chaotic.”
The 27-year-old, from near Cambridge, added:
We’re very much in stasis mode waiting for something to happen and hoping we can get to Dublin today.
Some US tourists were forced to pay 6,800 dollars (£5,262) for new flights home from Edinburgh Airport after original plans were cancelled because of IT outages.
Stephanie Thompson, heading home to Dallas, Texas, said her family, who were in the UK to attend Wimbledon and the Open Championship in Troon, were unable to reach British Airlines or American Airlines for support.
Speaking from Edinburgh Airport, she told the PA news agency:
It was supposed to leave at 9.25am and change in Heathrow at 11 and we were supposed to get into Dallas later today.
We couldn’t get an answer from anybody. British Airways kept hanging up saying we have too many calls right now. I was on hold with American (Airlines) for about an hour and 10 minutes before I finally hung up.
We just paid 6,800 dollars for a one-way trip home, hopefully leaving tonight. I didn’t know what else to do. I just wanted something to get us home.
Another US tourist, Debbie, and her family, said their flight to Boston was also cancelled.
Rafa de Miguel, El País’s UK correspondent, posted this video about “complete chaos at Ryanair bag drop at Stansted airport”.
Complete chaos at @Ryanair bag drop at @STN_Airport Queues are not respected, instructions are confusing, no information available. pic.twitter.com/0Zks7KPLO9
— Rafa de Miguel (@demiguelr) July 19, 2024
Guardian readers have been getting in touch to tell us how their travel plans have been affected by this morning’s outage.
Saffy Saleem, 29, a doctor travelling to Mallorca on holiday, is waiting for her flight from Stansted Airport, where she describes the scene as “chaotic”. “We’re stuck at Ryanair check-in. There are queues everywhere,” she says.
She has been waiting at the gate for nearly an hour.
We only managed to get our boarding passes about an hour before the flight, but once they checked in then we made it through security. But there were loads of people who’d already missed their flights.
She has been given a handwritten boarding pass and luggage tags.
They’re manually checking people in by crossing out who’s in what seat, and then working out where the free seats are, because no one has seat allocations. It’s very old-school and slow.
In Budapest, George Burr, 71, who is returning from a holiday with his wife, is currently waiting on a Ryanair plane to Bristol. He says:
We didn’t find out about the outage by anybody telling us, but by looking at the Guardian newspaper online.
Similarly to Stansted, Burr says that airline staff had adapted check-in procedures on Friday morning:
At the check-in, they just had a single sheet of A4 paper, and were just making a note of people’s check-in numbers. It was all done manually.
We’ve been sitting on the plane for nearly two hours. The cabin crew have had to manually count everybody. Obviously they’re not used to counting us, so they had to do it three times.
We’ve been told we’re waiting for a slot to take off, but nothing’s happened yet. I don’t know what the position is at Bristol airport, whether there’d be issues about us landing or not. There’s no certainty, I guess.
Meanwhile in Verona, Emma O’Hara, 30, from Dublin has encountered long queues and delays on her return from holiday in Italy with her friend Aisling.
A man [member of airport staff] came and kind of explained the situation, said that it was a European-wide outage, and he was quick to say that it wasn’t just Verona airport.”
We’ve been waiting an hour, which I suppose it’s not horrendous in the grand scheme of things, but we don’t know when we’ll board. People are a bit fed up, but no one’s in terrible humour yet.
Updated
Here’s a video showing the chaos at airports.
Microsoft says 'underlying cause has been fixed' – Refinitiv
Microsoft headlines are popping up on Refinitiv, saying the underlying cause of the global outage has been fixed.
Microsoft: underlying cause has been fixed
Microsoft: aware of an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon sensor software
Microsoft: underlying cause has been fixed for Microsoft 365 apps, services
Hospitals have been affected by the outage in countries including the UK, Germany and Israel, as reported earlier.
Two hospitals in the northern German cities of Lübeck and Kiel have cancelled elective operations scheduled for Friday, their operator said.
In the UK, BBC news health editor Hugh Pym reported:
A hospital source said that systems reported as affected so far included IT service desks, transport booking systems, radiology reporting, rostering systems, voice recognition software, the NHS App. Systems were not entirely down and not every hospital and/or patient affected.
— Hugh Pym (@BBCHughPym) July 19, 2024
A tech outage has hit computers around the world, affecting airlines, hospitals, retailers and other businesses. Here's what happened. https://t.co/apOpcPUYku
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 19, 2024
Updated
The South African bank Capitec has also been affected.
Due to an unexpected issue with an international service provider, we are currently experiencing nationwide service disruptions,
it said in an X post, adding that card payments and ATMs are not affected. In replies to users on X it said it was “working hard to resolve” the issues.
Due to an unexpected issue with an international service provider, we are currently experiencing nationwide service disruptions.
— Capitec (@CapitecBankSA) July 19, 2024
Note: Card payments & Capitec ATMs are working & your account remains secure.
We're resolving the matter asap. We apologise for the inconvenience. pic.twitter.com/u8rfg2rIyT
Chinese airlines not affected by outage, says state media
China’s flag carrier Air China and other major airlines have not been affected by the global tech outage that disrupted operations in multiple industries on Friday due to the use of different systems, according to state media CGTN.
Meanwhile, Wizz Air said it has suspended its fees for airport check-in as its online systems are unavailable due to the IT outage. It said in a statement:
During the outage, free airport check-in is available. Therefore, we advise passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time to allow sufficient time for check-in, security control and airport-specific health and safety procedures.
We thank you for your understanding as we deal with the effects of the global IT systems outage. The Wizz Air team is doing everything possible to minimise disruption to our customers.
The UK’s science, innovation and technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said government departments “are working seamlessly together to understand the nature of today’s outages and respond appropriately and swiftly”.
Govt departments are working seamlessly together to understand the nature of today’s outages and respond appropriately and swiftly. https://t.co/tKkfSGUNrk
— Peter Kyle (@peterkyle) July 19, 2024
In a statement this morning, Spain’s national airports authority, Aena, said “an information systems issue” could cause delays to flights.
Owing to an information systems issue, alterations are occurring in Aena’s systems and those of the Spanish airport network, which could bring delays. We’re working to resolve this as soon as possible. In the meantime, we’re operating systems manually.
By midday Madrid time, however, it said all Spain’s airports were operating and that flights were going ahead. Aena said:
Airports and airlines all over the world have been affected by the same incident.
Today’s programming is happening but with certain delays and some airlines are reprogramming their operations. Contingency programmes were activated early this morning and some manual processes were used to maintain operations.”
Both departures and arrivals are subject to delays which are decreasing - but there was no standstill at any point.
Updated
The UK’s transport secretary Louise Haigh posted on X:
We are aware of IT failures impacting several transport operators and terminals today, and we’re working at pace with industry and across government on the issue. There are no known security issues at present.
Some lines from Australia’s home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil:
The Australian government has conducted a National Coordination Mechanism meeting, which I joined earlier this evening. CrowdStrike attended the meeting and we can confirm there is no evidence that this is a cyber-security incident.
This is a technical issue, caused by a CrowdStrike update to its customers. They have issued a fix for this, allowing affected companies and organisations to reboot their systems without the problem. The company has informed us that most issues should be resolved through the fix they have provided, but given the size and nature of this incident it may take some time to resolve.
Governments are closely engaged at all levels, focused on bringing together the affected parties and ensuring government entities institute the fix as quickly as possible.
Updated
Here is our main story on the global IT outage:
Here is an explainer of what we know so far about.
Business and institutions around the world have been been knocked offline after an IT outage. In the UK, GP doctors’ surgeries have said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments. Sky News was off air for few hours but resumed broadcasting, while Britain’s biggest train company warned passengers to expect disruption because of “widespread IT issues”.
Around the world banks, supermarkets and other major institutions reported computer issues disrupting services, with some airlines warning of delays and some airports grounding flights.
If you’ve been affected by the outage, we’d like to hear from you.
Boss of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike blames global IT outage on software update
CrowdStrike president George Kurtz said the problem was caused by a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts”.
He wrote on X:
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. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. 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 organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.
Updated
Holidaymakers can't claim compensation from airline
UK and EU holidaymakers who have their flights delayed because of the IT outage are likely to find that they cannot claim compensation from their airline because the problem is out of its control, writes our consumer & Money editor Hilary Osborne.
EU rules, adopted by the UK, say that passengers can get compensation of up to £520 if their flight is cancelled or delayed by more than three hours - but not when the cause is an “extraordinary circumstance.”
Airlines are likely to argue that the outage counts as such - and some are already stressing in communications that the problems are not their fault.
Passengers who have travel insurance might be able to make a claim on their policy - but it will depend on the terms and conditions of the policy they have bought.
Cabinet minister: Whitehall crisis officials coordinating outage response
Whitehall crisis officials are co-ordinating the response to the major IT outage, cabinet minister Pat McFadden has said.
In a post on X, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said:
Many people are being affected by today's IT outages impacting services across the country and globally.
— Pat McFadden (@patmcfaddenmp) July 19, 2024
Ministers are working with their sectors and respective industries on the issue.
I am in close contact with teams coordinating our response through the COBR response system
Cobra is the committee tasked with handling matters of national emergency or major disruption.
The UK government has been urged to convene a Cobra meeting to respond to the major IT outage hitting airlines, train companies and banks.
In the UK, train companies are reporting delays, GP surgeries are unable to book appointments or access patient records and Sky News was knocked off air but is now back on air. Restaurants in parliament appear to be affected too, with catering services only accepting cash payments.
The Liberal Democrats demanded ministers co-ordinate an urgent response. 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.
Some UK retailers forced to switch to 'cash only'
Some UK retailers have been forced to switch to cash only because of the global IT outage.
Waterstones in Falkirk said on X:
Good morning!!
— Waterstones Falkirk (@FalkirkWtstones) July 19, 2024
Unfortunately due to technical issues, we will be CASH ONLY today.
Apologies for any inconvenience caused ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Og7LRFJ1PU
Waitrose and Morrisons are also affected, according to shoppers and other reports.
Just back from Waitrose where card machines have gone down. It's absolute chaos. By the time I got home my edamame beans were almost defrosted. Stay safe out there. #outage https://t.co/yBBkslUsIQ
— Duncan Woods (@the__DAW) July 19, 2024
Morrisons says it is experiencing issues with payments due to mass IT outage.https://t.co/m0BuezY1Oq
— STV News (@STVNews) July 19, 2024
Wetherspoons cannot take card payments, according to social media reports.
Oh is THAT why Wetherspoons is in chaos this morning. App down. Cash only. Kitchen screens blank. People are surviving on their wits out here
— /?mx=1 (@YellsOnPolitics) July 19, 2024
The Israeli health ministry said “the global malfunction,” has affected 16 hospitals across the country. Patients are not affected, they said, as the hospital has switched to using analogue or other systems without issue.
The ministry instructed the Israeli ambulance service, the Magen David Adom, to evacuate patients to hospital facilities unaffected by the malfunctioning computer systems. So far, they said ambulance services have not been affected by the issue, but advised anyone looking to call an ambulance to try an alternate number for the service if problems occur on the standard line.
In the Emirates, the Dubai International Airport, a major transit hub, said it has resumed normal operations after a system outage that had affected check-in procedures for some airlines, per Reuters.
One passenger with the Indian domestic airline IndiGo vented their frustrations on social media at being stuck in long queues at check in.
Stuck at Dubai airport for over an hour now. Check-in servers down, no movement in sight. Frustrating start to travel.
Some children told to stay off school on last day of term
Some children have been told to stay off school on the last day of term.
Castleford Academy in west Yorkshire said it is closed today.
IMPORTANT:
— Castleford Academy (@CastlefordAcad) July 19, 2024
Due to a severe issue with the academy computer servers, the academy will be closed to all pupils today.
We apologise for the short notice.
Whitecross Hereford High School in Herefordshire said its school information management system is down due to the tech outage and that parents should phone or email if their child is sick.
To all Whitecross parents and carers
— Whitecross (@WhitecrossHigh) July 19, 2024
Our SIMs system is down this morning ☹️
If you need to report your child absent, please call the absence line or email us ☎️📧
We hope it will be back up soon! 🖥️🛜
NHS England: Outage causing disruption in most GP practices but no impact on 999
The IT outage is “causing disruption in the majority of GP practices” in
England but there is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, NHS
England said.
The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with a GP appointment and patient record system.
— NHS England (@NHSEngland) July 19, 2024
If you have an appointment please do attend unless you are told otherwise. If you need help use 111 online or by phone and in an emergency call 999.
➡️https://t.co/M4QxHP2GqM
St Peter’s Medical Centre in Brighton, which uses SystmOne rather than Emis, is operating normally, my colleague Charlotte Naughton has pointed out.
Updated
Birmingham Airport said the majority of flights are operating normally but passengers are facing some delays at check-in.
On X, formerly Twitter, the airport posted:
The majority of flights are operating as normal. However, some check ins are experiencing delays which are being processed by colleagues. For those that have checked in online previously are unaffected.
This is clearly a rapidly evolving situation. Customers should follow the advice from airlines and we will continue to update passengers throughout the day.
A spokeswoman for easyJet, the UK’s biggest airline by passenger numbers, advised customers travelling from Spanish airports to arrive three hours before their flight due to the IT outage. She said:
EasyJet’s IT systems have not been directly affected by the Microsoft systems issues this morning, however we are aware that some airports’ systems have been impacted across Europe.
This has led to some disruption to flights this morning and we expect some further potential impact to flights today.
Customers should expect longer than usual airport queues and we are advising customers travelling from Spanish airports to arrive three hours before their flight. We advise customers due to travel with us today to continue to check the latest updates on their flight on easyJet’s Flight Tracker before making their way to the airport. Although outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Expert reaction to mass global IT outage
Here is more reaction from experts to the massive global IT outage:
Shumi Akhtar, associate professor at the University of Sydney, said:
Today’s technology outage — an unprecedented global crisis— sparked off in the USA, is now ominously rippling across the globe. This sudden, severe disruption halts everyday activities and starkly exposes the fragility of our heavily digitised world. From banking to healthcare, education to government, no sector remains untouched, highlighting an urgent need for a worldwide strategic overhaul of our critical infrastructures. This crisis calls for immediate collaborative action to enhance resilience through robust safeguards and fail-safes, especially in life-critical networks.
As a result of this outage, at least three critical sectors could be affected significantly.
In the medical industry, a technology outage can result in the loss of access to electronic medical records, critical patient data, and communication systems essential for patient care. This could delay surgeries, medication administration, and emergency responses, potentially endangering lives.
In the banking sector, an outage can cripple financial transactions, including ATM withdrawals, online banking, and payment processing. This disruption can lead to significant financial losses for consumers and institutions, and undermine public trust in the financial system
For the airline industry, technology outages can ground flights, disrupt ticketing and check-in processes, and affect air traffic control. This can lead to massive delays, financial losses, and compromise passenger safety and security. Each of these scenarios highlights the catastrophic potential of technology failures across critical industries.
Prof John McDermid of the Institute for Safe Autonomy at the University of York said:
Security software is intended to protect computers from attack, e.g. by malware. and to provide this protection it has a lot of power to control the host PC. Such software is pervasive – on many if not all machines of a particular type – so a fault in the security software can bring down many computers at once. This appears to be what is behind the widespread outage of Windows-10 based PCs around the world, with knock-on effects on air travel, banking, etc.
We need to be aware that such software can be a common cause of failure for multiple systems at the same time, and we need to design infrastructure to be resilient against such common cause problems, e.g. through use of diversity, that is not relying on a single make of computer system and/or software.
Dr Harjinder Lallie, cyber security expert at the University of Warwick, said:
The worldwide IT outage experienced this morning is unprecedented in the range and scale of systems it has impacted. Although we cannot speculate on the cause of this outage just yet, it appears that this might be a server error emanating from one server supplier.
This IT ‘catastrophe’ highlights the need for greater resilience, a greater focus on backup systems, and possibly even a need to rethink whether we are using the most resilient operating systems for such critical systems.
A traveller at Gatwick Airport queuing for over three-and-a-half hours has described the scene at the travel hub as “bedlam” with staff now handing out water to those stranded, PA reported.
Dean Seddon started queuing at 6am to check in for a trip with his social media training company to Miami, Florida, ahead of their scheduled departure at 10am with Norse Atlantic Airways.
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,” the 42-year-old from Plymouth told the PA news agency.
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.
Seddon said there had been some people getting “agitated” in the queue but overall travellers had remained calm.
UK pharmacies hit by IT outage
The UK’s National Pharmacy Association confirmed the IT outage is disrupting community pharmacies.
A spokesperson said:
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.
Ilkka Turunen, of the software supply chain management firm Sonatype, explains what’s going on with the Microsoft Windows outage.
The widespread outages across the world affecting Microsoft Windows are due to a botched update to a piece of software called CrowdStrike, a well-regarded malware and endpoint protection tool often used by enterprises and many companies across the world.
In terms of technical details, the update causes a BSOD loop on any Windows machine essentially making it boot and crash on an infinite loop. Making it worse is the fact that there are a significant number of Windows machines that the update was auto-installed on overnight. There are workarounds that customers of theirs will apply, but it seems to be very manual.
It’s definitely a supply chain style incident - what it shows is that one popular vendor botching an update can have a huge impact on its customers and how far a single well-orchestrated update can spread in a single night. It’s not yet clear if the contents were due to malicious reasons, but it shows how quickly targeted attacks on popular vendors could spread.
Updated
Swiss International Air Lines is also affected.
SWISS's flight operations are affected due to IT disruptions at partner organizations and air traffic control. We ask our passengers to please check the status of your flight before traveling to the airport. https://t.co/C3liPTPlH1 pic.twitter.com/ffoNVWngZy
— Swiss Intl Air Lines (@FlySWISS) July 19, 2024
The Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air said it is “facing extreme technical challenges” and advised “customers to arrive at the airport at least 3 hours prior to their flight today.”
Wizz Air alerts customers to arrive at the airport at least 3 hours prior to their flight today. pic.twitter.com/YUW3BPYeRp
— Wizz Air (@wizzair) July 19, 2024
Updated
Airports in Germany hit by outage at start of school holidays
Airports in Germany have also been hit by the outages, causing major delays at the start of school holidays for many regions.
Air traffic at Berlin’s BER came to a complete halt in the early morning hours of Friday, according to public broadcaster RBB due to a server breakdown that triggered several emergency systems to kick in.
The daily Tagesspiegel said several in-bound flights could not land in Berlin and had to return to the airport of origin or be redirected.
An airport spokesman said he expected takeoffs and landings to resume in the late morning.
A reporter for news agency DPA said long queues had formed at Terminal 1, particularly at check-in counters.
A spokeswoman for Hamburg’s international airport said that four carriers had been affected by outages: Eurowings, Ryanair, Vueling and Turkish Airlines, requiring tickets and boarding passes to be issued by hand.
The larger hubs of Frankfurt and Zurich reported no IT problems of their own but saw disruptions due to the knock-on effect from other facilities.
The Schleswig-Holstein university hospital in the north of the country cancelled all planned operations in Kiel and Lübeck due to the disruptions, according to a statement on its website.
Mark Lloyd, business unit manager at IT services firm Axians UK, said:
IT outages are being reported across the world due to a rogue CrowdStrike update. So far the outage has affected airports, banks, railways and the media, with Sky News being left unable to broadcast [earlier] this morning.
This outage is a stark reminder of how dependent the world is on cloud services. From productivity tools to critical infrastructure, a large chunk of technology runs on cloud platforms. This outage showcases the immense power and reach these services hold.
Even the biggest tech giants are not immune to disruptions, and the need for robust redundancy and disaster recovery plans across the board are more critical than ever in this day and age.
It’s important to remember in a time of disruption like this, we’re all on the same team, fighting the same bad guys.
Updated
At this stage, government officials are indicating they are not treating this as a cyber attack from hostile states or criminals, reports Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor.
Cyber security expert says outage may be caused by 'bug to security update'
Cyber security expert Dan Card, from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, said people “should remain calm” while businesses respond to the global IT outage, which may have been caused by a “bug to a regular security update”.
It looks like a bug to a regular security update, rather than any form of ‘mega cyber attack’, but this is still causing worldwide challenges and is likely to require a large number of people to take manual remedial steps.
Companies should make sure their IT teams are well supported as it could be a difficult and highly stressful weekend for them as they help customers.
People often forget the people that are running around fixing things.
'World grinding to a halt' but stock markets functioning as normal
“The world grinding to a halt because of a global IT meltdown shows the dark side to technology and that relying on computers doesn’t always make life easier,” says Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst at the stockbroker AJ Bell.
Countless industries, from airlines and trains to banks and media, face disruption to earnings if they cannot do their job. Workers cannot get from A to B and that will have a knock-on effect for industries across the board if staff aren’t there to perform important functions or systems are offline.
The severity of the problem boils down to how long it lasts. A few hours’ disruption is unhelpful but not a catastrophe. Prolonged disruption is another matter, potentially causing damage to companies and economies.
There is chatter that cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike ran an update which didn’t work on Microsoft’s operating system and that caused systems to fall over. Given we don’t know the full details, it’s too early for investors to work out the financial or reputational impact to these businesses.
Stock markets continued to function as normal despite corporate news feeds and information terminals being impacted by the tech outage. Futures prices imply a small pullback when Wall Street opens later today, but so far investors have not shown any panic. Whether that remains the case as the day goes on is another matter.
Updated
The global IT outage comes at a time when many people are heading off on their summer holidays.
The Dutch airline KLM said on X:
KLM and other airlines and airports have been affected by a global computer outage, making flight handling impossible. We realise that this is very inconvenient for our customers and staff, particularly in the midst of the summer holiday season. We’re working hard to resolve the… pic.twitter.com/O4gm7u0DIW
— KLM (@KLM) July 19, 2024
Eurowings, which is part of Germany’s Lufthansa group, said:
Due to an IT malfunction, there are currently disruptions in global air traffic. The check-in and boarding processes are impaired and online check-in is not possible. There may be delays and flight cancellations. Please check your flight status: https://t.co/QNYRbGnaMJ
— Eurowings (@eurowings) July 19, 2024
Britain’s Sky News is back on air after an outage lasting several hours, but its presenter said the news channel was operating at minimal capacity and without many of its usual services.
Two presenters were reading from paper scripts, with one, Anna Jones, saying they were not yet able to connect to any guests outside the studio to conduct interviews.
BREAKING: Airports, businesses, banks and broadcasters, including Sky News, experiencing issues worldwide after mass IT outage.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 19, 2024
Follow the latest and find out more on what companies have been impacted: https://t.co/Vljs0MTuQW
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/LqmYO0AAYs
GP surgeries in England hit by outage
GP surgeries across England hit by the outage have said the issue “will have a big effect”.
GP practices said they are unable to access patient records or book appointments due to the major global IT outage. Surgeries took to social media to report they cannot access the EMIS Web system. It is understood that NHS hospitals are currently unaffected by the outage.
Central Lakes Medical Group in Ambleside wrote on X:
We’re impacted by the IT outage. This will have a big effect on us, so apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused, and delays on the phone.
Another post by Pocklington Group Practice in the East Riding of Yorkshire said:
Due to ongoing Windows issues affecting IT worldwide, the practice is currently unable to function as normal.
This may result in appointments needing to be cancelled and rearranged. Updates will follow when available.
The Wilmslow Health Centre in Cheshire wrote on X:
All practices in the UK using the NHS commissioned GP computer system EMIS are currently without access to their IT systems.
This is beyond the control of GP surgeries. Please bear with us until we have our IT systems back online.
The Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, posted on X that “our clinical system has not been working since 7am this morning”. The GP practice said:
We have no access to patient clinical records so are unable to book appointments or provide information... This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority.
Solihull Healthcare Partnership in the West Midlands said there is a “national issue” with EMIS Web, the clinical computer system. Writing on X, it said:
Unfortunately there is a national issue with EMIS Web - our clinical computer system.
This will affect our ability to book/consult with patients this morning.
We will update patients when we can. We apologise for the disruption.
A reader wrote to us this morning, saying:
I’m currently sat in NHS Chorley Hospital (UK) and can confirm they are having issues and have been told they maybe cancelling appointments. I am an outpatient.
Updated
Airports, airlines including Ryanair disrupted by outage
Edinburgh Airport said the IT outage is causing longer waiting times. A spokesperson said:
An IT system outage means wait times are longer than usual at the airport.
This outage is affecting many other businesses, including airports. Work is ongoing to resolve this and our teams are on hand to assist where we can. Passengers are thanked for their patience.
Ryanair said its flights are being disrupted by the outage. The airline said in a statement:
We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control.
We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.
Turkish Airlines said “due to a global technical issue in our information systems, we are currently experiencing problems with ticketing, check-in, and reservation processes.”
ℹ
— TK HelpDesk (@TK_HelpDesk) July 19, 2024
Dear Passengers,
Due to a global technical issue in our information systems, we are currently experiencing problems with ticketing, check-in, and reservation processes.
Our teams are working diligently to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
For the latest updates, please… pic.twitter.com/zPFSVJ20C4
Spain reported a “computer incident” at all its airports, while Amsterdam and Berlin’s Brandenburg airports are also affected.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport said “there is currently a global system failure. This disruption also has an impact on flights to and from Schiphol. The impact is now being mapped.”
There is currently a global system failure. This disruption also has an impact on flights to and from Schiphol. The impact is now being mapped. Do you have a question about your flight? Please contact your airline.
— Schiphol (@Schiphol) July 19, 2024
Berlin’s Brandenburg airport said that “due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in.”
Passagierhinweis: Aufgrund einer technischen Störung kommt es zu Verzögerungen bei der Abfertigung.
— BER – Berlin Brandenburg Airport (@berlinairport) July 19, 2024
Information for passengers: Due to a technical fault, there will be delays in check-in. pic.twitter.com/gVint8DqiS
Amsterdam Airport atm pic.twitter.com/9aC6QwD01g
— Toripo (@Eth_Toripo) July 19, 2024
Airports in India have also been disrupted, according to a passenger.
The Microsoft / CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India. I got my first hand-written boarding pass today 😅 pic.twitter.com/xsdnq1Pgjr
— Akshay Kothari (@akothari) July 19, 2024
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London Northwest Railway and West Midlands Railway said they are also affected by the outage.
#LNRNew
— London Northwestern Railway (@LNRailway) July 19, 2024
We are also impacted due to this issue. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. https://t.co/rC3ZSqN9gg
#WMRNew
— West Midlands Railway (@WestMidRailway) July 19, 2024
We are also impacted due to this issue. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. https://t.co/xJp02RcQgM
Banks, airlines, railways and media outlets hit by global outage linked to Windows PCs
Businesses including banks, airlines, railways, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets have been taken offline after blue screen of death error screens were seen on Windows workstations across the globe.
Users on the subreddit for cyber security firm CrowdStrike reported issues in India, the United States and New Zealand.
Britain’s biggest train company has warned passengers to expect disruption due to “widespread IT issues”.
Govia Thameslink Railway – parent company of Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern – issued an alert on its social media channels.
⚠️ 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.
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 19, 2024
We are unable to access driver diagrams at certain locations, leading to potential short-notice cancellations,…
The NHS booking system used by doctors in England is offline, medical officials said on X.
Sky News in the UK reported being off air this morning, with Sky News sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao posting on X: “We’re obviously not on air – we’re trying.” Sky News is still down, according to a message on its website.
We’re obviously not on air - we’re trying 🤞@SkyNews Breakfast pic.twitter.com/ZKvVacRgUY
— Jacquie Beltrao (@SkyJacquie) July 19, 2024
The London Stock Exchange is also facing technical issues.
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The government’s borrowing was just over £3bn above the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecast across the first three months of the financial year, totalling nearly £50bn.
Receipts are running slightly behind expectations, while spending has been higher.
The EY Item Club forecasting group, which uses the Treasury’s model, thinks higher debt servicing costs means there’s a good chance this underperformance will persist for the rest of the year. Further ahead, the outlook for the public finances depends on how the new government approaches fiscal policy.
Peter Arnold, EY UK chief economist, said:
The public finances data tends to be prone to revision, so the picture for the start of fiscal year 2024-2025 could look different in a few months’ time. But as things stand, the EY Item Club thinks this underperformance is likely to persist. The OBR’s assumptions for gilt yields and Bank Rate look too low, and this suggests debt servicing costs will prove to be higher than they expect. This is likely to mitigate the reduction in borrowing caused by a significant tightening in fiscal policy.
Looking further ahead, the EY Item Club awaits the new chancellor’s first budget with interest. Maintaining the net debt rule will mean that, in the absence of forecast revisions from the OBR, the new government will face a similar need to consolidate to their predecessors. It looks likely that the freeze on most tax allowances will be maintained for at least the next three fiscal years. However, it may prove challenging to turn existing spending totals into department-by-department plans, both in terms of current and capital spending.
Lisa Hooker, PwC’s leader of industry for consumer markets, said shoppers were still reluctant to spend despite the fall in inflation to 2%, higher wage increases and lower social security contributions.
It appears that the cooler, wetter weather over spring and early summer, combined with longer term uncertainty in the period prior to the general election, has discouraged shoppers from both buying seasonal goods and making longer-term big ticket purchases.
Retail sales fell by 0.1% in the second quarter from the first, contributing little to GDGP growth.
Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said this keeps his forecast for GDP growth in the second quarter at 0.6%, while the Bank of England has forecast 0.5%, “as consumer spending on services fares better while output is supported by business-to-business spending too”. He said:
As the weather took a turn for the worse in June so did consumers’ spending. Rainfall was 24% below average in June, compared to 19.7% above in May, but June was much cooler than May relative to the seasonal average. The temperature in June averaged 0.2 degrees below the norm, whereas May was the warmest since at least 1884. That probably explained the drop in sales in June.
Retail sales have been enormously volatile this year, as they are bounced around by the weather and measurement problems. That enormous volatility can disguise the underlying trend. Retail volumes were not booming in May and neither are they collapsing now. Year-over-year retail sales volumes growth is steadily, if unspectacularly, trending up as consumers’ real income growth improves, they have to replace items like televisions and clothes, and goods inflation slows relative to services.
Charlie Huggins, of the investment firm Wealth Club, said:
Retail sales volumes came in weaker than expected in June, following a stronger-than-expected May. This continues the volatility in monthly sales patterns seen since the turn of the year, with strange weather and economic caution playing a role.
Consumers weren’t exactly splashing the cash in June - sales in every category, excluding fuel, declined. But we should remember that May sales were especially strong. Sales volumes over the last 3 and 6 months are broadly flat and suggest the consumer is in reasonable health, but not exactly feeling flush.
The volatility in monthly retail sales is making it even more difficult than usual to read the economic tea leaves. June was not a great month for the sector. But inflation is moderating, wages are rising and the election is now done and dusted, providing much needed certainty. This means sales could easily bounce back over summer, especially if the weather Gods start being a little more kind.
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Introduction: Retail sales in Great Britain slump by 1.2%; government borrowing figure for June is lowest since 2019
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
Retail sales in Great Britain slumped by 1.2% last month, with retailers blaming poor weather and cost of living pressures.
Retail sales volumes fell by 1.2% in June from May, following an increase of 2.9% in May, according to the Office for National Statistics. Economists had expected a smaller fall of 0.4%.
Sales fell across most sectors, and were down by 2.1% at non-food stores (department, clothing, household, and other non-food stores) while supermarkets and other food stores posted a 1.1% decline.
Grant Fitzner, the ONS chief economist, said department stores, clothing shops and furniture stores were the biggest contributors to the fall.
Retail sales fell back from May’s recent high point with falls across all main shop types, with the exception of petrol stations.
Retailer commentary suggested that both poor weather and economic conditions had an effect, as consumers showed caution with their spending.
Retail sales are estimated to have fallen 1.2% in June 2024, following an unrevised rise of 2.9% in May.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) July 19, 2024
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/5D0Ir5Q61s pic.twitter.com/nsQ59CiX1s
Separate figures from the ONS showed the government borrowed £14.5bn in June, £3.2bn less than in June last year. It was the lowest June borrowing – the difference between public sector spending and income – since 2019.
Analysts had pencilled in borrowing of £12bn.
The interest payable on central government debt fell by £5.5bn to £7.4bn, largely because the interest payable on index-linked gilts (government bonds) rises and falls with the retail prices index, which has reduced sharply.
Public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks was £14.5 billion in June 2024, £3.2 billion less than in June last year. This was the lowest June borrowing since 2019.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) July 19, 2024
Read more ➡️ https://t.co/bTZeRDJFM1 pic.twitter.com/G0BlVIahAY
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