As it happened: Global IT outage hits airlines, supermarkets and banks; CrowdStrike CEO apologises for outage

Thanks for reading our rolling coverage of the massive IT outage that caused havoc with software systems around the world, causing laptops to repeatedly crash and display the ‘blue screen of death’.

The country was struck by the crash – described as the largest IT outage in history – at about 3pm on Friday, plunging airports, businesses, services, supermarkets and banks into chaos.

The outage is believed to have been triggered by an update from software security company Crowdstrike.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travellers, to anyone affected by this,” CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz told the US Today show late this evening.

Jetstar was forced to cancel all its flights in Australia and New Zealand on Friday night, impacting thousands of customers about to fly out for the weekend. Overseas, the global crash forced American Airlines, United and Delta to ask the Federal Aviation Administration ground stop on all flights just after 5pm AEST.

The federal government called a snap meeting of emergency authorities, and executives from Telstra, Optus, Coles, Woolworths, Qantas and Virgin on Friday night to respond to the unfolding chaos.

Read our full report by David Swan and Eryk Bagshaw here.

Melbourne Airport has advised anyone flying out from the airport tomorrow to keep a close eye on communications from their respective airlines and to plan for delays.

The airport has also warned there could be more congestion at the airport on Saturday.

Sydney Airport is closed but security lanes are due to re-open at 4am.

Qantas has repeated its warning from earlier on Friday that some flights could be delayed and it was working to resolve those issues for customers.

All Jetstar flights have been cancelled until 2am on Saturday AEST in Melbourne, and United Airlines has cancelled UA 61 to San Francisco.

“Melbourne Airport and our airline partners will be working through the night to return operations to normal,” a Melbourne Airport spokesperson said.

“Jetstar has notified passengers that all Jetstar Airways flights have been cancelled until 2am local time. United Airlines flight UA 61 to San Francisco has also been cancelled as a result of the outage.”

All other airlines both domestically and internationally will continue planned operations tomorrow, but these may be affected by cancellations and delays at other ports.

“Our advice for passengers is to check with your airline for individual flight updates and if you are departing out of Melbourne Airport tomorrow allow a little extra time as we do expect additional congestion in the terminals.”

CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz has apologised for the software update that has sent airports, supermarkets and transport into chaos around the world.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travellers, to anyone affected by this,” Kurtz told the US Today show.

“The system was sent an update, and that update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system,” Kurtz said.

CrowdStrike has identified the bug and remediated the issue. “As systems come back online, as they’re rebooted, they’re coming up, and they’re working. And now we are working with each and every customer, to make sure that we can bring them back online,” he said.

CrowdStrike urged customers and organisations to refer to their support portal for the latest updates.

“We will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” Kurtz said. “We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.”

CrowdStrike has urged customers and organisations to refer to their support portal for the latest updates.

George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc.

“We will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” chief executive George Kurtz said in a statement posted to X.

We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.

Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.

Beijing Capital International Airport and China’s major airlines have largely avoided the chaos that has unfolded across the globe.

Air China, China Southern Airlines and Hainan Airlines, told CGTN that their flights were not affected by the global crash because they use different systems.

Chinese companies have long eschewed using international systems in their operations, opting for their own programs for cybersecurity and censorship purposes.

All Jetstar flights in Australia and New Zealand have been cancelled until 2am on Saturday, impacting thousands of customers due to fly out for the weekend.

“The IT outage is impacting multiple Jetstar systems, including the system we use to contact customers and we sincerely apologise for the frustration this is causing,” the spokesperson said.

“Our teams are working on recovery options and we will contact customers with updates as soon as our systems are back online.”

Large crowds at Melbourne Airport this evening.Credit: Christopher Hopkins

Jetstar said customers due to travel on Friday or Saturday could rebook or refund their flight.

Microsoft says the underlying cause of the outage has been fixed for Microsoft 365 apps, which includes Word, Excel and a number of other programs.

However, the company said the residual impact of the cybersecurity crash would continue to affect some services.

RMIT telecommunications and network engineering academic Mark Gregory said home computers should not be affected by the outage. “CrowdStrike typically provides its Falcon security platform to large businesses and enterprise customers,” he said.

In Britain, some cancer patients have had radiotherapy appointments cancelled because of the global IT outage.

The Telegraph reports patients at Royal Surrey NHS Foundation were informed that it was unable to carry out planned radiotherapy treatments because the system it used had been impacted.

The trust, which operates several hospitals and other healthcare clinics, has declared a critical incident as it works to resolve the issues affecting its services.

Other hospitals’ radiology departments are reportedly also affected with scans unable to be read, while appointment booking services and medication prescribing systems are also down.

The NHS has already confirmed that GP services have been hit by the issue affecting Microsoft and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

NSW emergency services have had some information distribution systems impacted but triple zero was working as normal.

NSW Police have urged the public to only call triple zero in an emergency.

Alastair MacGibbon, the chief strategy officer at CyberCX and a former cybersecurity adviser to the prime minister, said Australia felt the brunt of today’s cyber crash because the faulty CrowdStrike update was issued during the middle of the night in the United States.

“This was done, obviously, when less computers are turned on in America, but given the nature of how these things go, it means that things are on in Australia,” he told the ABC.

Former national cybersecurity chief Alastair MacGibbon.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

MacGibbon said the crash was a reflection of how connected societies are now, not just in Australia, but around the world.

“So when a very important piece of software, has a problem, we’re seeing the really massive impact of it,” he said.

MacGibbon said it was reassuring that it was not a cyberattack.

“If you’re stuck at a supermarket checkout or you can’t get a plane, sure it’s disappointing. But it’s better to know that it doesn’t seem like a malicious act because that can give more calm to the public.”

The challenge for businesses now was installing the fix to get networks back online.

“What you now need to do is get to each of those computers and pretty much reboot them, and you can’t do it remotely, because when you do it remotely, the security software stops it happening,” he said.

“It’s not a big technical issue. It’s just having a big impact.”

Sydney’s Qantas domestic terminal has largely avoided technical difficulties brought on by the worldwide Microsoft outage, with flight schedules remaining largely unchanged.

But self serve check-in facilities remained shut down at 6:00pm and customers were still unable to generate digital boarding passes.

Qantas terminal in Sydney about 6pm on Friday.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

Qantas had been directing customers to check baggage and collect boarding passes at staffed counters as many of the airline’s internal systems remain functional.

However, its low-cost subsidiary, Jetstar, experienced some of the most significant disruptions among Australian airlines.