Budget airline Ryanair, Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as Windows 10 PCs have all been struck by a disastrous IT outage that's impacted millions of people worldwide.
Independent website DownDetector, which tracks social media activity to monitor when online services are experiencing difficulties, has reported sudden spikes in problems with popular services, like Microsoft 365, banking apps from Santander and Lloyds TSB, as well as booking systems with Ryanair and Wizz Air.
The mass IT outage impacts millions across the UK, but spreads as far as Australia, New Zealand, India and Japan, with telecom giant Telstra already reporting issues.
What's causing this disastrous IT meltdown? Well, most experts believe it's the result of two events:
- An outage with Microsoft Azure, the cloud services used by thousands of businesses from Adobe to M&S, as well as most of Microsoft's own services, like Microsoft 365, Xbox Live, and Microsoft Teams
- An issue at CrowdStrike, a popular antivirus solution that offers endpoint protections for some of the biggest companies on the planet, issued a new update for CrowdStrike sensors that's causing issues
Blue Screen of Death, or BSOD, is a well-known error screen that appears when your Windows laptop or desktop PC is unable to load the operating system
MICROSOFT
The glitch from CrowdStrike seems to be behind laptops and desktop PCs powered by Windows 10 becoming unusable. Windows 10, which remains the most popular desktop operating system on the planet, being stuck by the infamous error screen colloquially known as the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD).
"It looks like Windows didn’t load correctly. If you’d like to restart and try again, choose Restart my PC below," the error message, which its trademark bright blue background, reads on Windows 10 PCs worldwide. However, those struck down by this error have reported being unable to reboot their machine to resolve the error, which also seems to be related to the CrowdStrike issues.
Ryanair has warned those with upcoming flights about “potential disruptions across the network” due to a global third-party system outage. Sharing an update on its website, the budget carrier posted: "Potential disruptions across the network (Fri 19 July) due to a global 3rd party system outage.
"Affected passengers will be notified and any passengers travelling across the network on Fri 19 July should check their Ryanair app for the latest updates on their flight.
If you're due to travel today and have not already checked-in for your flight, you can do so at the airport. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of this Global 3rd party IT outage.
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) July 19, 2024
"We advise passengers to arrive at the airport 3 hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions. We regret any inconvenience caused to passengers by this 3rd party IT issue, which is outside of Ryanair’s control and affects all airlines operating across the network."
Microsoft has issued a similar update, reassuring customers who rely on services like Microsoft 365 that teams are investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access apps and services.
“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” the Redmond-based company shared on X, formerly Twitter, this morning. “We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue.”
Speaking to GB News about the ongoing IT issues, Adam Pilton, a former Detective Sergeant charged with investigating cybercrime, said: "At the time of writing IT systems around the world are not operating. This is impacting many businesses and will impact our daily lives.
"Currently, we do not know what has happened, there is no suggestion that this is a cyber attack. The belief is that this is a technical issue. Maybe not coincidently, the cyber security company CrowdStrike are having issues too. Time will tell whether these are directly related.
"CrowdStrike has stated that they are aware of reports of crashes on Microsoft's Windows operating system relating to its Falcon sensor. There are some suggestions that this is two major incidents running simultaneously. A service-wide Azure outage and CrowdStrike Falcon blue screens.
"What we are seeing now though are the businesses which have business continuity and incident response plans in place. These businesses are effectively communicating the issues and ensuring their customers are informed.
"Society is dependent upon technology and this is why we must have both technical and non-technical controls in place to protect us when issues arise, whether malicious or not. Social media is ablaze with users reporting that they are unable to work and one user on Reddit even stated they were commenting purely to be part of history on ‘The day that CrowdStrike took out the internet!’
"This is very much the point of why all businesses must plan and prepare. As we are seeing, a huge dependency on individual suppliers can take down supply chains."
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