Impacts locally of the widespread Microsoft, CrowdStrike outage; now resolved

CITYnews halifax / By The Associated Press, Hana Mae Nassar and Dan Ahlstrand

A widespread Microsoft outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday morning is now resolved.

Escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

“Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress,” Microsoft wrote on X just before 1 a.m. Pacific.

Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress. More details can be found within the admin center under MO821132 and on https://t.co/uSHwRmYdzx

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 19, 2024

Flights impacted locally

Locally, Halifax Fire and Rescue said that Friday’s outage did not impact operations. Halifax Regional Police and RCMP in Nova Scotia both reporting no impact from the outage.

Halifax Stanfield International Airport reported some impact from the outage.

“There were some delays this morning as a result of this global IT issue, and our team is working hard with our partners and airlines to ensure flight operations can normalize. I would strongly reiterate the message about staying atttuned to flight update information from your airline throughout the day. .” said spokesperson Tiffany Chase

Porter Airlines announcing that they had cancelled flights.

Porter is cancelling flights until 12 p.m. ET, for July 19, 2024, due to third-party systems outages affecting global industries. Visit https://t.co/1IdMdjaOrV for more information and updates. We’re working to return service asap.

— Porter Airlines (@porterairlines) July 19, 2024

In the U.S., the FAA said the airlines United, American, Delta and Allegiant were grounded. Airports in Europe and Australia also reported problems.

“We’re continuing to reroute the affected traffic to healthy infrastructure,” the company said hours prior.

The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.

One possible cause of the internet issues plaguing airlines, companies and governments around the world is a tool developed by the online security firm CrowdStrike.

Israel’s Cyber Directorate was among the groups attributing the issues to CrowdStrike.

A recording playing on CrowdStrike’s customer service line said, “CrowdStrike is aware of the reports of crashes on Microsoft ports related to the Falcon sensor,” it said, referring to one of its products used to block online attacks. It said callers should monitor its customer support portal.

Many people took to social media to say they had been affected by the outage, with some sharing that they had encountered the “blue screen of death,” which Microsoft refers to as Blue Screen errors.

This “can occur if a serious problem causes Windows to shut down or restart unexpectedly,” Microsoft explains on its website.