Microsoft IT outage live: Total recovery from CloudStrike failure ‘could take weeks’ amid more flight delays

A flawed update rolled out by CrowdStrike, one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, knocked many offline around the world on Friday, causing flight and train cancellations and crippling some healthcare systems.

Here is a closer look at what we know about the incident:

Warnings that criminals could exploit the global IT outage are growing amid fears it could cause a second wave of disruption.

Australia’s cyber intelligence agency said on Saturday that “malicious websites and unofficial code” were being released online claiming to aid recovery from Friday’s global digital outage.

On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) – the country’s cyber intelligence agency – said “a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident”.

On its website, the agency said its cyber security centre “strongly encourages all consumers to source their technical information and updates from official CrowdStrike sources only”.

Cyber Security Minister Clare O’Neil said on social media platform X on Saturday that Australians should “be on the lookout for possible scams and phishing attempts”.

Cyber security experts said the outage was “unprecedented” in its reach, affecting many of the world’s biggest companies.

The cause of the problems was initially mysterious: Windows computers showed a blue screen of death, or BSOD, as if they had just spontaneously stopped working.

A passenger has said his mother made him arrive four hours before their flight at Gatwick Airport.

Asked if he had given himself lots of time to make his flight, Renato Martinez, 18, from London, said: “My mum has. My mum has given us lots of time. Every time, she loves coming early.”

He said he was flying to Ecuador to visit his family there.

And the teenager added he expected the check-in queue to take about 45 minutes in total.

“It’s going quicker than I expected,” he said.

Hundreds of people have joined long check-in queues at Gatwick Airport as airlines continue to deal with the fallout from the global IT outage.

Charles, 50, from the Midlands, said he was glad he was in a queue to leave the country rather than arriving to the UK.

“I’m glad it’s because we’re going out,” he said.

“It’d be different if we were going back.”

He said his British Airways flight to Jamaica was in three hours, but he arrived early to get through the queues.

“Because of the situation yesterday on the news we just took a bit more time just to get here. I’m glad we did, to be honest with you.”

He said he believed the long queues on Saturday morning had been caused by everyone on long haul flights arriving at the airport early. And he added: “So they’ve all just given themselves an extra hour or two.”

President Joe Biden is receiving regular updates on the global outages, according to a senior Administration official.

“President Biden will continue to receive updates on the CrowdStrike global tech outage that disrupted operations across multiple industries on Friday,” per the official.

“The White House is in regular contact with CrowdStrike’s executive leadership and tracking progress on remediating affected systems. We have offered US government support.

“Our understanding is that this is not a cyber attack, but rather a faulty technical update.The White House has been convening agencies to assess impacts to the US government’s operations and entities around the country.

“At this time, our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains, and 911 centers are able to receive and process calls.

“We are assessing impact to local hospitals, surface transportation systems, and law enforcement closely and will provide further updates as we learn more. We stand ready to provide assistance as needed.”

Close to 7,000 flights were cancelled globally yesterday – equating to 6.2 per cent of all scheduled flights.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium reported that 6,855 flights were cancelled on Friday amid the global IT outage.

Of those, 207 were UK departures, which was 6.7 per cent of all scheduled flights, while 201 were UK arrivals.

As of 10am today, 1,639 flights have been cancelled globally – equating to 1.58 per cent of all scheduled flights.

The flight data shows that 23 UK departures have been cancelled so far today, which is 0.9 per cent of all scheduled flights, with a further 25 inbound flights cancelled.

Before this week, CrowdStrike was known for finding the cause of problems, rather than causing them. The company – headquartered in Austin, Texas, but with a reach across the world – was most famous for having investigated large-scale hacks, such as those on Sony Pictures and breaches at the Democratic National Committee that it blamed on Russian spies.

It has built a huge business out of that and other work. It was worth $80bn (£62bn) when trading on the Nasdaq closed on Thursday – though its share price has since fallen by 20 per cent. It reported revenues of $3bn in the last year.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 – by a team that included George Kurtz, the CEO who has been representing the company as it recovers from the problems – and immediately caught the interest of investors. The year after, it launched with a $26m investment round, and it has gathered more investment since.

Read our detailed report.