Businesses and institutions around the world have been knocked offline after a major IT outage occurred on Friday, caused by a single update by Crowdstrike, a US anti-virus company. 

What has been described as the biggest IT outage in history was caused by something Crowdstrike did to its virus scanner Falcon, and it has shutdown Microsoft applications around the globe.

“It’s not just a mistake or just an error, this is the worst sort of thing that can happen … This is more serious than a cyber attack, really, because it shows our systems aren’t even proofed against randomness,” said Richard Buckland, professor of cybercrime at UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering. 

Major infrastructure including airlines, train companies, stock exchanges, banks and media outlets have been disrupted after their computer systems were knocked offline or leaving devices showing the so-called “Blue Screen of Death”. 

The travel industry was among the hardest hit with airports around the world, including Tokyo, New Delhi, Amsterdam, Berlin and several Spanish airports reporting problems with their systems and delays.

Airlines, including Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, warned of problems with their booking systems and other disruptions.

In the United States, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and Allegiant Air grounded flights citing communication problems.

In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, multiple reports from medical officials on X said, train operators TransPennine Express and Govia Thameslink Railway were affected, and Sky News, one of the country’s major news broadcasters was off air for a number of hours, apologising for being unable to transmit live.

Banks and other financial institutions from Australia to India and South Africa warned clients about disruptions to their services, while LSEG Group reported an outage of its data and news platform Workspace.

Traders in oil, gas, power, stocks, currencies and bonds from London to Singapore struggled to operate.

Across Australia, major businesses have been affected including the ABC, airlines and big banks.

Other businesses affected included Seven and Nine Networks, Qantas and Virgin Australia, Telstra Woolworths and several major banks. Website Down Detector, which monitors tech outages, showed dozens of companies appeared to have issues.

The ABC was unable to broadcast, while other networks dumped their afternoon bulletins due to the outage.

A screenshot from Down Detector on Friday afternoon.

“A major worldwide tech outage, believed to have been caused by a flawed anti-viral update from US cyber security company CrowdStrike, has plunged many of the world’s largest companies into crisis and prevented Australian newsrooms from publishing the news,” Sky News Australia wrote on X.

It reported the issue had also hit the NSW Parliament, with staff sending a building-wide outage alert.

“Dear members and colleagues, we are experiencing issues with Parliament computers that are displaying a blue screen error,” it reportedly said.

Bendigo Bank responded to a customer query with: “Our IT team are investigating the current issue with our e-banking service. Once we have more info we’ll be able to provide updates on our social pages.”

There were also widespread complaints from consumers left stranded at major retailers.

“All the point-of-sale machines at both my local Coles and Woolworths have started crashing one by one. Wondering if it’s a widespread issue?” wrote one X user.

Network Ten confirmed it had been affected in a post to social media.

#BREAKING: Widespread Microsoft outages have sent IT systems across Australia into a tailspin this afternoon, with banks, airlines, police, and other systems reported as being affected.

(And humble news social team admins too, evidently. We’re doing our best here. More to come.) pic.twitter.com/IM0LZARu5v

— 10 News First (@10NewsFirst) July 19, 2024

90% of my local Woolworths registers had the #BSOD. Queues a mile long, absolute chaos. National outage? Local? pic.twitter.com/IuztPMfaQw

— BYoung 🇦🇺 (@MrBMYoung) July 19, 2024

with Reuters and AP