Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage: From airports, ATMs, banks and hospitals — we see what was impacted

Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage: In an worldwide IT outage of epic proportions from CrowdStrike Holdings following the cybersecurity company’s software update for Microsoft Windows, systems critical to various sectors crashed for hours on July 19.

Both companies announced that patches were launched to iron out the issues and systems were slowly restored, but not before widescale interruptions in key sectors such as healthcare, banking, and travel.

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Challenges Abound

Bloomberg reported “bankers in Hong Kong, doctors in the UK and emergency responders in New Hampshire” were locked out of critical programs which affected operations. Speaking to the publication, Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said, “This is unprecedented. The economic impact is going to be huge.”

According to the “fix” suggested by CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, offices were required to reboot their Windows systems and remove bad files in a manual, time-consuming process. IT professions, especially those tasked with remote systems were stuck with systems that kept crashing and a process that requires administrative permissions to be completed.

This is notably, the biggest such outage since Amazon experienced cloud errors in 2017, affecting thousands of websites, and content delivery platform Fastly took down media networks in 2021.

So, what were the sectors most impacted and what is the status now? We take a look. Notably, most impacted companies and sector have been brought online by late Friday (US time).

Healthcare

• In the UK, the National Health Service or NHS systems were widely affected, leaving doctors unable to access blood tests, patient histories or scans, as per Bloomberg.
• In the US New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Boston’s Mass General Brigham “warned” of the outage affecting patients, Bloomberg said.
• Reuters reported the outages affected call centers, patient portals and other operations for healthcare centres in the US. Tufts Medical Center warned that patients might experience delays or need to be rescheduled, it added.
• In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, posts on X by medical officials told Reuters.
• Further, 911 and other emergency systems were also down in New York, Bloomberg reported, adding that emergency systems were unreachable in New Hampshire before being restored.
• In Europe, multiple hospitals reported cancellation of procedures and closure of clinics due to the outage, a Bloomberg report said.

Government Agencies

• Federal agencies in the US — from the FBI to the Department of Justice, were also hit with the outage, Bloomberg reported. Federal healthcare, state and local police, plus some Department of Energy sites and the .gov domain were impacted, a source told the publication.
• Reuters reported that the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency found activity from hackers showing that they were using the outage for phishing and other malicious activities.
• The US Customs and Border Protection department also told Reuters it was experiencing processing delays and was “working to mitigate issues related to international trade and travel”.
• The Dutch and United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) foreign ministries also reported disruptions, Reuters said.
• As per an AP report, some state and local governments in the US reported problems at courts, motor vehicles departments, unemployment agencies, emergency call centers and other offices. By days’ end many were reportedly back to normal, it added.
• In Alaska, the state’s court system returned to functionality after repairs that took 12 hours to complete, spokesperson Rebecca Koford told AP.
• In Iowa, AP reported that Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state’s critical technology systems were up and running again by mid-afternoon.

Airlines & Travel

• Airports from Berlin to Delhi, and Los Angeles to Singapore struggled with delays, cancellations and stranded passengers at a time that was already particularly busy for travel, Bloomberg reported.
• As per data on FlightAware, over 21,000 flights were slowed globally with travel disruptions expected to be felt in the coming days too, Bloomberg reported.
• US-based carriers United Airlines and Delta Air Lines were the worst impacted, as per Bloomberg. Meanwhile other US air companies such as American Airlines and Spirit Airlines had to also temporarily halt flights, as per the US Federal Aviation Administration (US FAA).

Banks & Finance

• The London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) news website RNS was disrupted due to the outage, Bloomberg reported. The platform is used by companies to distribute price-sensitive regulatory announcements.
• Besides the UK, the offices of international bankers Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Nomura Holdings had to resort to backup systems as employees were unable to log into their systems, Bloomberg reported. Further, the trading desk at Haitong Securities was out of commission for three hours, it added.
• JPMorgan saw additional pain with “thousands” of its automated teller machines (ATMs), which stopped working, Bloomberg reported and added that some of the bank’s teller stations were also down. All functions were restored by late July 19, a source told the publication.
• TD Bank responded to online complaints by saying it was working to restore customers’ ability to access their accounts, AP reported.
• Insurance brokerage Marsh, told Bloomberg that “dozens” of clients “are preparing to file claims over the matter”.

Automakers

• Renault’s Maubeuge plant, which produces the car maker’s Kangoo line had to shut down in the afternoon due to system hiccups, Bloomberg reported. It added that the company’s Douai plant was also shuttered for the day as parts suppliers were impacted by the outage.
• Elon Musk took to his social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), to state that his EV company Tesla has “deleted” CrowdStrike from all systems. In a previous post he had stated the outage “gave a seizure to the automotive supply chain.”

Media & TV

• Major broadcaster in Britain, Sky News was taken off air due to the outage, Reuters reported.
• Early Friday, may TV stations in the US were “prevented” from airing the morning news, AP reported. As per AP, KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, aired Scripps News instead of local news until about 5:35 a.m., the stations said on its website. Other local stations owned by Scripps reported similar problems, though Scripps spokesman Michael Perry told AP 90 per cent of stations were able to air local news.
• In Australia, national news outlets — including ABC and Sky News Australia — were unable to broadcast for hours. Some news anchors went on-air from dark offices, in front of computers showing blue error screens.

Corporations

• Companies such as FedEx and Meta’s Facebook were also hit, as per Reuters. FedEx saw disruptions in shipments while content moderators on Facebook faced difficulties, it added.
• A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, said it was battling problems, AP reported.
• Twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, marine terminals were affected, while albiet facing minor disruptions, AP reported.
• American Express told AP it temporarily had some difficulties processing transactions.
• At Starbucks outlets, customers experienced “minor inconveniences” such as long lines due to trouble ordering, the AP report said.

(With inputs from Bloomberg, Reuters and AP)