The airlines, hospitals and other companies hit by Crowdstrike outage


Businesses around the globe scrambled to reboot their systems Friday after a widespread IT outage knocked out computer systems, causing chaos throughout the transportation, media and health-care industries.

The outage, triggered by a faulty update pushed by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, affected some Microsoft systems, giving would-be workers a “blue screen of death.”

The software glitch caused massive disruption as it rippled across multiple sectors, grounding airplanes, forcing hospitals to cancel non-emergency procedures, causing issues with some banking systems and interrupting television broadcasts.

Here are some sectors that have been affected by the massive outage.

Airlines

Travelers dealt with long delays and grounded flights Friday as airline workers hurried to check people in manually and restart their systems.

What’s affected:

By midday Friday, many airlines said flights were starting to resume. Dutch airline KLM said before 11 a.m. that its flight disruptions had been “almost completely resolved.” Delta said it had resumed some flights and issued travel waivers to would-be passengers, which they could use to rebook their flights within the next several days. But United Airlines warned that “schedule disruptions may continue.”

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg posted Friday on X that officials are continuing to monitor the impact of the IT outages on transportation systems across the country.

“Many flights are impacted as systems recover — passengers should check with their airline for updates and visit our website for more on passenger protections,” he wrote.

Hospitals

Several hospitals and health systems around the world reported technology issues Friday, forcing some to pause procedures or encourage patients to stay home if they could.

What’s affected:

Massachusetts General Hospital posted on X that “all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits” were canceled Friday. Its emergency rooms remained open.

In England, the National Health Service said the outage was causing issues with its patient record systems at general practitioner offices. “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,” it wrote in a statement.

Seattle Children’s Hospital closed its outpatient clinics on Friday, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center said it was pausing the start of procedures with anesthesia. Many health systems emphasized that their emergency services remained operational.

Major institutions impacted:

  • Brigham and Women’s Hospital
  • Duke Health
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
  • The National Health Service in England
  • Seattle Children’s Hospital

Banks

Some banking and financial institutions said digital services were impacted by the outage Friday, though many said throughout the day that most customer services were restored.

What’s affected:

Overall, the outages appeared to have a muted impact on the banking industry.

TD Bank said in a short message on its website that it was working to restore digital services but that customers could still visit stores or ATMs. And Frost Bank in Texas said it was seeing “sporadic outages” but that many systems have been restored.

In New Zealand, ASB Bank reported that its credit and debit card services were working but that “other systems are still being impacted by the global tech issue and our team is continuing to work with the impacted supplier to resolve this.” South Africa’s Capitec posted on X that its banking channels were back up and working, writing: “Phew! That was rough.”

Major institutions affected:

  • ASB Bank
  • Capitec
  • Frost Bank
  • TD Bank

Television news

Some television stations around the world had issues with their broadcasts early Friday.

What’s affected:

The Associated Press reported that several local news stations owned by Scripps News were briefly unable to broadcast local coverage and instead showed national coverage. A company spokesman told the AP that 90 percent of the stations were able to show local news by 8 a.m.

Sky News Group’s executive chairman, David Rhodes, posted on X that the British station was unable to broadcast live TV in the morning. He posted later in the day that the network was “back live on TV without full capabilities.”

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s news division said in a segment that some of its systems were affected.

Major companies impacted:

  • CBC News
  • Scripps News
  • Sky News



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