After massive IT outage for airlines and health care, officials see signs of recovery (original) (raw)

Democracy Dies in Darkness

Updated

July 19, 2024 at 9:27 p.m. EDT

|Published July 19, 2024 at 3:16 a.m. EDT

Travelers wait at Milwaukee General Mitchell International Airport after United Airlines and other carriers grounded flights Friday. (Andres Stapff/Reuters)

Federal officials expect transportation systems will largely return to normal operations by Saturday, following a massive IT outage for Windows users that knocked out systems for transportation, delivery and health care.

Airports on Friday were crowded with stranded travelers as major U.S. airlines grounded flights. Several health-care providers delayed some scheduled procedures. Emergency 911 call service was disrupted in some areas.

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  The U.S. Coast Guard announced connection outages in some of its rescue systems, the department wrote on X, and recommended they be contacted by radio or phone. The area of impact, District 7, covers South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Caribbean Sea. The Coast Guard recommends using VHF radio 16 or calling (305) 415-6800.

• At Providence Health, surgeries canceled after 15,000 servers affected

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For Providence Health & Services, the scale of the CrowdStrike outage set in quickly on Thursday night. The not-for-profit health-care system, one of the nation’s largest, said nearly 15,000 servers were impacted.
Initially, its IT team had to physically log in and access each affected server, desktop or laptop. “We realized this isn’t going to scale,” B.J. Moore, Providence’s chief information officer, said in an interview Friday.

• Some Starbucks stores closed, mobile ordering down

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Multiple Starbucks stores are closed because of the outages, the company wrote on X. Mobile ordering on the Starbucks app is currently unavailable, and some customers have reported issues with getting refunds from those online transactions.
“We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible,” a Starbucks spokesperson wrote in a statement.

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  The scope of the outage has revealed the depth of Microsoft’s influence throughout the global economy, raising concerns consumers and businesses are overly reliant on a single company.
  “All too often these days, a single glitch results in a system-wide outage," FTC chair Lina Khan tweeted. “These incidents reveal how concentration can create fragile systems.”

• Youngkin: Virginia health, safety, transportation systems operational

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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said Friday that health, safety and transportation systems across the state appeared to be operational after an overnight assessment of the Microsoft outages. The statewide 911 emergency call system, he said, was functioning.

• The existential angst of the global tech outage

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Imagine a day when everything goes haywire. That was Friday.
It was not quite a global catastrophe, since it was mostly just a lot of devices, gadgets, computers and machines failing to work right. But it was revelatory — and ominous.
In today’s world, a single bad piece of software can wreak havoc on a global scale. And there’s more of this to come, according to experts who study and fret about our increasingly complex technological systems.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• CrowdStrike should be ‘embarrassed,’ consumer advocate says

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For a popular cybersecurity company such as CrowdStrike, pushing a buggy update to thousands of devices is an easy mistake, said Kyle Wiens, CEO of technology repair site iFixit. That’s exactly why the company should be “embarrassed,” Wiens said.

• Some affected 911 services come back online

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Several state and county agencies have resolved 911 disruptions tied to the global outage.
The Alaska State Troopers said the agency had restored emergency service operations by 4 a.m. Friday. Dispatch centers switched to analog phone systems or partnered with functioning dispatch centers after the 911 system was knocked offline Thursday night, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

• From airport hordes to FOMO, outage sparks chaos and inconvenience

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Andy Luten, an American expat living in Australia, had just boarded his red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Sydney when a delay notification flashed on his American Airlines app. He and his fellow passengers spent a couple of antsy hours on the tarmac before deplaning around 2 a.m.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• Prepare for lingering problems from the global computer meltdown

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Chuck Herrin, an executive with digital security firm F5, was in Manila on Friday when his airline told him a technology outage meant his flight back to the United States had been canceled.
Herrin then asked his hotel to extend his reservation — but it couldn’t because its computer system was crippled, too.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• Windows outage affects UPS, FedEx

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The effect of the Windows outage on crucial delivery and logistics operations could mean some delays for packages in parts of the United States.
UPS is experiencing disruptions to some computer systems in the United States and Europe, but “at this time, our airline continues to operate effectively and our drivers are on the roads delivering for customers,” a spokesman said. The company warned that “there may be some service delays.”

• Some Maryland hospitals cancel elective procedures

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Some Maryland hospitals are canceling elective procedures, officials said, but all remain open as hospitals in the D.C. region respond to the Windows outage linked to CrowdStrike.
“Issues include problems with access to electronic health records, transcription services, prescription and other cloud-hosted software systems,” said Melony G. Griffith, president of the Maryland Hospital Association. “Many business systems such as budgeting and care coordination are also affected.”

• Retailers say customers won’t see disruptions. Coffee may be an exception.

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Several retailers have acknowledged some impact from the global IT outage, but those who spoke to The Post said customers are unlikely to experience disruptions as they shop.
A spokesman for Walgreens, which has had “minimal disruption” to its operations, said “our stores remain open and able to serve our patients and customers.”

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  The CrowdStrike outage disrupted thousands of flights at American airports Friday morning, including more than 40 percent of flights leaving from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

• Significant impact on health industry reflects widespread use of Windows

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The disruptions to hospital patients in the United States and globally are revealing how a simple software update can cripple health-care organizations that rely on widely deployed digital systems.

• Buttigieg says transportation systems returning to normal but issues remain

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The Cyberstrike-related problems affecting transportation systems should largely be resolved by Saturday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.
“We have such tightly wound and interdependent systems that these ripple effects can carry on, but it does seem, as of now, hour by hour, the issues are being addressed, resolved and smoothed out,” Buttigieg told CNBC on Friday. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get to something much more resembling normal by the time we get to tomorrow.”

• Microsoft says earlier Azure outage not related to CrowdStrike incident

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Microsoft said a Thursday problem with its Azure cloud-computing service had nothing to do with the subsequent massive IT outage caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update, which affected some Microsoft systems.
“Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally. We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

• U.S. cyber agency says hackers are trying to exploit the outage

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The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Friday that it was working with CrowdStrike and other partners to address the issues caused by the widespread IT outage.
The agency said it has noticed threat actors using the incident as a way to push phishing attempts and cyberattacks.
“CISA urges organizations and individuals to remain vigilant and only follow instructions from legitimate sources,” it wrote in a statement.

• What to do if your airline was affected by the Microsoft outage

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A worldwide Microsoft meltdown that began Thursday night has grounded flights and stranded passengers across the world.
As of 11 a.m. Eastern time, more than 3,000flights had been canceled worldwide. More than 1,800 of those were flights operating into, within or out of the United States, according to FlightAware.com, an online flight-tracking website. More than 27,000 flights were delayed worldwide, with delays affecting more than 4,700 flights originating and/or ending in the United States.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

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  Thousands of flights around the world have been canceled or delayed Friday morning after mass IT outages, according to flight tracking site FlightAware. Delta, China Eastern and United are among the hardest hit.

• How to fix the ‘blue screen of death’ on your PC

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A problem with Microsoft Windows caused sweeping outages affecting hospitals, airlines, emergency services and people at home. The error — caused by a technical problem with cybersecurity software from CrowdStrike — sends users to a “blue screen of death,” telling them their device needs to restart.
But simply restarting might not fix the issue, users report. On Reddit, IT workers discussed the dizzying scope of the outage.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• Outage appears to have had muted impact on banks and financial sector

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The global IT outage that grounded major airlines and rippled through health care, transportation and corporate services appeared to have a muted affect on the banking sector, with major credit card firms and financial experts reporting few disruptions.

• What caused the Windows outages affecting flights, companies around the world

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Mass IT outages have caused disruptions around the world — with thousands of flights canceled or delayed and online services down at airports, hospitals, banks and businesses. Many Microsoft users started their day with an error screen — dubbed the “blue screen of death,” or BSOD error.
The company says it is aware of an issue affecting Windows programs running technology from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company. Here’s what to know about the widespread IT outages and what happens next.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• Television news stations recovering after early disruptions

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The global IT outage prevented some television news stations from airing overnight and into Friday morning.
Several affiliates for Scripps News could not air local news reports, the Associated Press reported. By Friday, though, roughly 90 percent were operational. And anchors for an NBC affiliate in San Francisco turned to YouTube to tell viewers that “massive technical difficulties” were behind Thursday’s programming disruptions.

• How a software error melted down the world’s computer systems

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Widespread technology errors Thursday and Friday stranded airline passengers around the world, halted hospital surgeries and crippled office workers’ computers in one of the most disruptive computer outages in years,highlighting how much of the world relies on essential but inherently error-prone software from a handful of companies.
This is an excerpt from a full story.

• Flight delays cost travelers at Reagan National Airport

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For their flight home to North Carolina, John Cox and his wife found themselves spending more than a day at Reagan National Airport.
A technical issue Thursday evening prompted major airlines including Delta to delay service and reroute passengers. Then the 10:17 a.m. Friday flight to Charlotte was pushed to Saturday at noon.
“It completely derailed our plans,” said Cox, slumped on a seat by the entrance of the airport.

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  On X, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said officials are continuing to monitor the impact of the IT outages on transportation systems across the country. He urged airline passengers whose flights have been affected to check the department’s FlightRights.gov to understand what airlines must offer when flights are canceled or significantly delayed.

• At BWI, officials urge patience

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At Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, the D.C. region’s largest, staff members handed out bottles of water as travelers stood in line to rebook flights or tried to wait patiently for word on their fates. According to FlightAware.com, 75 departures — about 20 percent of those scheduled — were delayed, and nine were canceled by about 10 a.m. Eastern time.

• Video: Windows outage disrupts systems worldwide

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Airlines around the world halted flights and businesses faced disruptions on July 19 due to a software issue on Windows machines. (Video: Jackson Barton/The Washington Post)

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  CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said he was “deeply sorry” to anyone affected by the global outage during an appearance Friday on NBC’s “Today” show and vowed to “make sure every customer is fully recovered.” Many CrowdStrike systems are recovering and will soon be operational, he said, but “it could take some time for some systems that won’t automatically recover.”
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  A White House official said President Biden has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and that the administration is in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities. The White House will get “sector by sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed,” the official added.

• IT outage forces U.S. hospitals to put off ‘non-urgent visits’

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Health-care systems around the country are reporting disruptions from the outage affecting computers with Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
Mass General Brigham, a nonprofit that operates one of the largest hospital systems in Massachusetts, said on its website that it is canceling all “non-urgent visits” at its hospitals and clinics Friday. The organization said its emergency departments remain open and it is providing care for urgent appointments and procedures.

• Cancelations, delays ripple through the U.S. aviation system

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At 9 a.m. Eastern time, more than 2,100 flights had been canceled worldwide. More than 1,200 of those were flights operating into, within or out of the United States, according to FlightAware.com, an online flight-tracking website. More than 22,000 flights were delayed worldwide, with delays affecting more than 2,600 flights originating and/or ending in the United States.

• Outage hits some rail, bus systems

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Some large transit agencies are experiencing delays as they contend with Friday’s global computer system outage. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority said on its website Friday morning that some customer information systems “are temporarily offline.” The outage affected MTA’s website and app, as well as countdown clocks and arrival announcements, NYCT Subway posted on X. Train and bus service has not been affected.

• Health services and hospitals impacted by outage

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Hospitals and health systems around the world have been affected by the Microsoft outage.
England’s National Health Service said the outage had caused “disruption in the majority of GP practices,” referring to primary care physicians’ offices, due to issues with their appointment and patient records system.

• Photos: Travelers affected by Microsoft outage face airport chaos

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  The Paris Olympics organizing committee said Friday that some of its IT services have been impacted by “the global technical issues affecting Microsoft software,” though it stressed that ticketing systems were unaffected and “the preparation of venues is continuing normally.” The outage has had a “limited” impact so far, affecting “the delivery of uniforms and accreditations,” while some delegations were experiencing flight delays, it added. The Olympics are due to start next week.
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  Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, the largest airport in Taiwan, reported computer service disruptions that affected some airlines using a Microsoft cloud system, according to a Facebook post from the airport. Delta and United Airlines have suspended flight departures from the Taoyuan airport. Six budget airlines — AirAsia, Hong Kong Express, Jeju Air, Jetstar, Scoot and Tigerair Taiwan — resorted to manual check-in for all flights. At least two major hospitals in Taipei experienced internet outages for up to an hour in the early afternoon, and services are now back to normal, local media reported.
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  In Germany, Axel Schmidt, a spokesman for Berlin-Brandenburg BER Airport, told The Post that flights resumed shortly after 10 a.m. CET (4 a.m. Eastern) after being briefly suspended. “We now have a backlog of flights to work through,” he said. “We’re trying to get everyone to their destinations as quickly as possible.” The outage hit shortly after most schools began their summer break.
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  Earlier Friday, Washington’s Metrorail said it was “affected by a known issue impacting computer systems across the globe.” Train information was not showing up on screens in some stations, and some WMATA websites appeared to be down. However, “all Metrorail stations opened on time & service is running as scheduled,” Metrorail said in a post on X. It also wrote that the Metro Transit Police Department “can still be reached at (202) 962-2121 or by texting MYMTPD (696873).”
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  At South Korea’s Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, a large line of people formed at the counters of Eastar Jet — one of three local budget airlines affected, according to the Yonhap News Agency. The airline had resorted to checking in passengers by hand as the automated check-in kiosks were knocked out by the outage.
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  Microsoft, in a post on X at 6:46 a.m. Friday, said that “the underlying cause has been fixed, however, residual impact is continuing to affect some Microsoft 365 apps and services.” In a longer service update online, it noted “this issue may be impacting any user attempting to use various Microsoft 365 apps and services” and said it was “continuing to treat this event with the highest possible priority.”

• Some U.S. flights resume, but disruptions likely to continue

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Early Friday, the impacts on the global aviation system were only beginning to become apparent, as airlines paused flights and worked to accommodate travelers. About 110,000 flights were scheduled to operate globally Friday. By 6 a.m. Eastern time, roughly 1,390 had been canceled, though the numbers appeared to be growing, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company.

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  The stock price of CrowdStrike, whose software is widely used by businesses to protect them from cyberattacks, looks set to decline significantly on Friday morning. In trading of shares before the regular hours of stock markets in the United States, CrowdStrike’s share price fell by about 14 percent.
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  United Airlines said in a statement that it was “resuming some flights but expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday.” It blamed a “third-party software outage” that impacted computer systems worldwide. “We have issued a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans via United.com or the United app,” the airline added.
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  Azure, a cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft, said Friday that it had “been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD) and get stuck in a restarting state.” It said the impact started around 3 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. “We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike.” BSOD stands for “Blue screen of death,” and refers to the Microsoft error screen.

• What is CrowdStrike?

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CrowdStrike is a U.S. cybersecurity company headquartered in Austin. It was set up in 2011 by George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch to provide security for the world’s leading businesses using “endpoint protection” and “expert intelligence to pinpoint … adversaries” launching cyberattacks, according to its official website.

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  Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday that he understood “Australians are concerned about the outage that is unfolding globally and affecting a wide range of services,” adding “there is no impact to critical infrastructure, government services … at this stage.” The country’s ABC News reported that banks and media outlets in Australia were among those affected.

• CrowdStrike CEO says tech issue identified, ‘fix has been deployed’

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The chief executive of CrowdStrike said Friday that the U.S.-based cybersecurity company has identified and isolated the issue “and a fix has been deployed” after a global IT outage led to flight disruption and impacted the operations of companies, banks and media outlets.

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  Hong Kong International Airport switched to manual check-in Friday afternoon, with all self-service check-in facilities impacted by the Microsoft outage, according to a notice from the city’s airport authority. As of 3:45 p.m. local time, flight booking and redemption services remained unavailable via the website of Cathay Pacific, the flag carrier of Hong Kong.
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  Dutch airline KLM said it, along with other major airlines, was “affected by a global computer outage, making flight handling impossible.” The airline said in a post on X “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 problem. Until then, we will have to largely suspend operations.”
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  American Airlines said that as of 5 a.m. Eastern time “we have been able to safely reestablish our operation.” It blamed a “technical issue with a vendor” for impacting its airline, along with other carriers. “We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience,” it said. Earlier on Friday the airline had a ground stop in place temporarily halting departing flights.
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  Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport said Friday that flight “disruption” was impacting flights to and from the major airport due to “a global system failure.” It said in a social media post that the “impact is now being mapped,” as it urged passengers to contact their airlines for more information.
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  A Delta Air Lines spokesperson said in a statement early Friday that “all Delta flights are paused as we work through a vendor technology issue.” It did not name the vendor, but added that “any customers whose flights are impacted will be notified by Delta via the Fly Delta app and text message,” directing people toward its phone app for updates.
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  The Federal Aviation Administration has just issued a statement saying it “is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines.” It adds that “several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops for their fleets until the issue is resolved.”
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  Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, in a recorded phone message, said it was aware of reports of Microsoft Windows errors related to its technology. The company, which is headquartered in Austin, said in a prerecorded message on its helpline Friday that it is “aware of reports of crashes on Windows … related to the Falcon sensor.” It directed its customers to a support portal.

• Photos: Microsoft outage hits Australian shoppers

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A Microsoft IT outage has hit Australian payment systems in stores across the country.

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  Alaska State Troopers said early Friday that “many 911 and non-emergency call centers are not working correctly” across the state, citing a “technology-related outage.” It redirected emergency callers to different numbers in a Facebook post.
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  Reporting from Charles de Gaulle airport
  Boarding for an Air France flight from Paris to Montreal was paused due to “a computer problem,” Paris airport and airline employees told passengers as they sat on the floor waiting to board. A Delta flight from Paris to Salt Lake City was delayed “due to a system issue,” a sign at the gate said.
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  In Germany, all flights at Berlin-Brandenburg BER Airport were suspended Friday morning. Some departures resumed at around 10 a.m. Central European Time, a spokesperson said, adding that arrivals were predominantly impacted. The outage hit just a day after summer break began at schools in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, as well as the city state of Hamburg.
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  United Airlines said in a statement early Friday that “a third party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United.” The airline added that it was working to restore those systems but in the meantime “we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”
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  American Airlines said Friday that a “ground stop” is currently in place impacting its departing flights. It added that it was in contact with its planes already in flight. “We’re aware of a technical issue with CrowdStrike that is impacting multiple carriers,” it said. “American is working with CrowdStrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”

• Frontier Airlines lifts ground stop after technical issues

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Frontier, after announcing that it had grounded flights after its systems were “impacted by a major Microsoft technical outage,” said early Friday that its ground stop on flights due to a technical issue has been lifted.
“Our systems are gradually normalizing. We are in the process of resuming flight operations,” the Denver-based budget airline said in a post on X.

• American Airlines, United and Delta are grounding flights

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American Airlines, United and Delta are grounding flights citing communications issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s advisory page — as mass IT outages affect businesses across the world. The groundings come hours after Microsoft said it had resolved a cloud services outage that had forced a grounding of Frontier and Sun Country flights, though it is unclear if the groundings from major air carriers are related. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, in a recorded phone message, said it was aware of reports of Microsoft Windows errors related to its technology. In a statement to The Washington Post, American Airlines cited a “technical issue” with CrowdStrike that it said was impacting multiple carriers.