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Tuesday, July 23, 2024
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Global Tech Outage

 * What We Know
 * When Tech Fails
 * Congress Calls for Hearing
 * Families Left Scrambling
 * More Flights Canceled
 * Guard Against Scams


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OUTAGE FOR MICROSOFT USERS KNOCKS OUT SYSTEMS FOR AIRLINES AND HOSPITALS IN
CHAOTIC DAY

Companies across the world reported disruptions, citing technical issues from a
cybersecurity software update.

July 19, 2024
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Scenes of the Disruption ›
 1.  Chicago
     
     By Craig Hettich/ The New York Times
     
 2.  San Francisco
     
     Jim Wilson/The New York Times
     
 3.  Manhattan
     
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 4.  Milwaukee
     
     Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
     
 5.  Atlanta
     
     By The Associated Press
     
 6.  Milwaukee
     
     Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
     
 7.  San Francisco
     
     Jim Wilson/The New York Times
     
 8.  Rome
     
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 9.  Atlanta
     
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 10. Madrid
     
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 14. Brooklyn
     
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 15. Eindhoven, the Netherlands
     
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 17. Berlin
     
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 18. Bangkok
     
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 19. Seoul
     
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 20. Kloten, Switzerland
     
     Gaetan Bally/EPA, via Shutterstock
     


Pinned

Adam Satariano, Derrick Bryson Taylor, Remy Tumin and Danielle Kaye




HERE’S WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE OUTAGES.

A global technology outage, attributed to a glitch in a software update issued
by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, wreaked havoc on airlines, health care
systems, banks and scores of other businesses and services around the world on
Friday. The disruption, which reached what some experts called “historic”
proportions, was a stunning example of the global economy’s fragile dependence
on certain software, and the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong.

The software update resulted in crashes of machines running the Microsoft
Windows operating system. George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, said it
was not a security incident or a cyberattack. He said a fix had been sent out
but warned that it could take some time to be put in place.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused,” Mr. Kurtz said on NBC’s
“Today” show.

CrowdStrike’s software is used by myriad industries around the world.
Disruptions persisted throughout Friday as businesses manually updated their
systems and airlines struggled to get crews and planes to where they were
needed.

Flights in the United States started taking off again by late morning, and
crucial services, including emergency systems, were up and running. But progress
was uneven as major companies, including banks and retailers, as well as health
care systems struggled to get back online. Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya
Nadella, said in a post on X that the company was working with CrowdStrike to
help customers recover.

Here’s how the spillover effects were felt all over the world:

 * Flights disrupted: U.S. airlines began restoring service on Friday after at
   least five of them — Allegiant Air, American, Delta, Spirit and United — had
   grounded all flights for a time, according to the Federal Aviation
   Administration. Travelers did not see immediate relief, however, even as
   flights took off, because of cascading delays at airports. By Friday
   afternoon, more than 2,000 flights across the country had been canceled,
   according to FlightAware, compared with about 900 on Thursday. But it was far
   from the country’s worst travel day of the year: Bad weather forced U.S.
   airlines to scrap more than 3,100 flights on Jan. 15.

 * Global reach: The issues were also felt at other airports around the world,
   including in Hong Kong; Sydney, Australia; Berlin; and Amsterdam. In Britain,
   check-in machines stopped working. The United Parcel Service and FedEx both
   reported disruptions, which could delay deliveries in the United States and
   Europe. Customers with TD Bank, one of the biggest banks in the United
   States, reported issues with accessing their online accounts, and several
   state and municipal court systems closed for the day because of the outage.

 * Emergency care: The outage destabilized health care systems across the globe,
   and hospitals canceled noncritical surgeries on Friday. Emergency response
   systems in the United States were also affected, and 911 lines were down in
   multiple states, the U.S. Emergency Alert System said on social media. Most,
   if not all, of the 911 problems appeared to have been resolved by midmorning.
   Kaiser Permanente, a medical system that provides care to 12.6 million
   members in the United States, said that all of its hospitals were affected,
   and it activated backup systems to keep caring for patients.

 * Federal response: President Biden was briefed on the CrowdStrike outage,
   White House officials said. Administration officials were “in touch with
   CrowdStrike and impacted entities” and “engaged across the interagency to get
   sector-by-sector updates.”

 * Largely unaffected systems: Some basic services, including major grocery
   store chains and public transit systems, appeared largely unaffected by the
   outages, at least in the United States. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud,
   two of the major cloud-computing platforms alongside Microsoft Azure, said
   that by and large, their services were operating normally.

Show more
July 19, 2024, 4:27 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 4:27 p.m. ET

Lazaro Gamio

This outage was unlike how other widespread disruptions tend to occur. Here’s
how.

How a Software Update Crashed Computers
 1. Widespread outages are often caused by errors in a centralized source, like
    a server farm, or damage to cables or other physical equipment.
    
 2. This outage was unique: It started with a software update sent to PCs from
    CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm used by many big companies.
    
 3. The update caused computers to constantly reboot, taking them offline. That
    made it harder for the company to push a fix from afar.
    
 4. As a result, most computers will have to be fixed one-by-one by a person
    removing the faulty code.
    


July 19, 2024, 4:05 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 4:05 p.m. ET

Joe Rennison

Stocks ended the day lower, with the S&P 500 down 0.7 percent and the tech-heavy
Nasdaq Composite down 0.8 percent -- a modest end to a globally disruptive event
that left markets across Asia and Europe nursing losses. CrowdStrike itself bore
the brunt of the investors’ response, down by around 11 percent for the day.



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July 19, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET

Karl Russell

CrowdStrike’s stock price has taken a hit from the outage. As of the afternoon,
its shares had fallen by roughly a quarter from their high just 10 days ago.


CROWDSTRIKE’S STOCK PRICE SO FAR THIS YEAR



Source: LSEG Data & Analytics

By The New York Times

July 19, 2024, 2:55 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:55 p.m. ET

Danielle Kaye

While major U.S. grocers like Kroger reported largely normal operations on
Friday, Starbucks grappled with widespread disruptions. Mobile orders were still
down in the early afternoon, a Starbucks spokeswoman said, but the coffee chain
was still serving customers at the vast majority of its stores.

July 19, 2024, 3:04 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 3:04 p.m. ET

Danielle Kaye

Daniel Huttinger of Bozeman, Mont., said the drive-thru at his local Starbucks
was closed on Friday morning. Baristas had to deal with confused customers, he
said, and they turned to the old-school method of tracking orders: writing them
by hand on cups.

Image

Credit...Graham Dickie/The New York Times
July 19, 2024, 2:49 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:49 p.m. ET

Jim Wilson

Terminal 3 in San Francisco International Airport had long lines of weary
travelers, but they seemed to be taking it all in stride for the most part. Some
had been waiting since yesterday for their flights. Plenty of snacks and water
were available to the passengers, some of whom resorted to finding a spot on the
carpet to get a few minutes of shut eye.


July 19, 2024, 2:45 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:45 p.m. ET

Christine Chung and Mark Walker




U.S. AIRLINES MUST OFFER SOME STRANDED TRAVELERS COMPENSATION.

Image

A software update gone awry disrupted communications and networks globally,
including at LaGuardia Airport.Credit...Dakota Santiago for The New York Times

The Transportation Department said on Friday that U.S.-based airlines must
provide affected passengers compensation for flight disruptions set off by the
global software outage that had roiled air travel, spurring thousands of delays
and cancellations worldwide and in some instances, stranding travelers abroad.

The move is a significant reversal from how airlines were treating the situation
earlier in the day, as something inherently outside their control for which
their only obligation to passengers was free rebooking of their flights and
nothing further. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines had both previously told
travelers that they would not foot the bill for lodging.

But that changed when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a
televised statement on Friday afternoon that airlines needed to treat the
software outage just as they would a mechanical or technical failure, situations
that were firmly within an airline’s control where airlines generally covered
costs for food, lodging and transport.

“We have reminded the airlines of their responsibilities to take care of
passengers if they experience major delays,” Mr. Buttigieg said.

What airlines are now required to provide depends on the severity of the
inconvenience a traveler experiences. Any compensation would kick in only after
three hours had elapsed. Passengers with overnight delays or cancellations can
expect complimentary ground transportation and accommodation, and meal vouchers
if they’ve waited three hours or more.

Many travelers on Friday reported waiting far longer than three hours for
rescheduled flights, and said they had been dealing with an organizational
nightmare: glitching airline apps, interminable phone waits and conflicting
information from airlines that they’d be on the hook for costs.

On Friday, passengers booked on a United Airlines flight from Narita Airport in
Japan to Newark Airport were told after a roughly four-hour delay that their
flight had been canceled. A gate agent then informed them that the airline would
not subsidize hotels or transportation from the airport and that they were on
their own. Some were told the earliest they could be on a rescheduled flight was
on Monday. By 2 a.m. on Saturday local time, at least 100 passengers were
waiting outside the airport, hoping to find a ride elsewhere.

A United Airlines spokesman confirmed on Friday afternoon that it was treating
the delays as controllable. Representatives for Delta Air Lines and American
Airlines have not directly commented on the matter.

Danielle Ivory contributed reporting.

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July 19, 2024, 2:40 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:40 p.m. ET

Sheera Frenkel

At CrowdStrike, engineers described an atmosphere of confusion as the company
struggled to contain the damage on Friday.

Executives urged employees not to speculate on why the mistake had happened and
directed them to instead focus on a fix for the millions of computers that were
affected, said two engineers who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak publicly. Computers not connected to the cloud
required a physical fix to the error introduced by CrowdStrike, they said, which
could take weeks.

July 19, 2024, 2:36 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:36 p.m. ET

Annie Correal and Jill Cowan




MANY HOSPITALS CANCEL NONESSENTIAL SURGERIES.

Image

Kaiser Permanente activated its national command center around 7:30 a.m. Eastern
to address “widespread” effects of the outage on its system.Credit...Mike Kai
Chen for The New York Times

Hospitals and health care providers across the United States told patients on
Friday morning that a global technology outage had downed some information
technology systems, resulting in canceled surgeries and other procedures, though
the hospitals emphasized that emergency departments remained open.

Some major hospital systems were affected, including the Kaiser Permanente
medical system, which runs dozens of hospitals and hundreds of medical offices
in the western United States and elsewhere in the country. Kaiser Permanente
activated its national command center around 7:30 a.m. Eastern to address
“widespread” effects of the outage on its system, said Steve Shivinsky, a
spokesman for the health provider.

The outage was affecting “all of our hospitals,” said Mr. Shivinsky, who called
the situation “unprecedented.”

Banner Health, a large system based in Phoenix that operates hospitals and
health care centers in six states, said that it closed clinics, urgent care
centers and other outpatient facilities on Friday morning, but that hospitals
would remain open for inpatient care and medical emergencies.

Mass General Brigham hospital system, which operates 15 hospitals across New
England, had canceled all nonurgent procedures, surgeries and visits, hospital
officials said on Friday morning.

The problems stemmed in many places from hospitals losing access to
patient-record systems.

When Epic Systems, a widely used patient record-management application, went
down on Thursday night at hospitals in the Providence Health system, “we knew we
had a catastrophe on our hands,” said B.J. Moore, the chief information officer.

With 52 hospitals in seven states and 1,000 clinics, Providence Health, based in
Renton, Wash., is one of the largest health systems in the country, Mr. Moore
said. Patient records continued to be accessible on phones and iPads, he said,
but enough applications, including ones used in surgeries, were down that many
nonemergency procedures had to be canceled on Friday.

All 15,000 servers that run constantly were down. And thousands of computers —
some 40,000 out of 150,000 throughout the system — “blue-screened” or had other
issues starting on Thursday night.

Mr. Moore estimated that more than 1,000 people across Providence Health,
including some in India, were working to fix the outage, and that fully
restoring operations could take weeks. “This is worse than a cyberattack,” he
said, adding that in a cyberattack, only Providence would be affected, not the
other companies it relies on, including labs that process blood work and medical
suppliers.

Several other hospitals and hospital networks also reported disruptions, which
occurred after a software update issued by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm,
led systems to crash.
The two largest providers of dialysis in the United States, DaVita and Fresenius
Medical Care, said in statements that the outage did not affect patients.

Despite major disruptions to commercial air travel, the transport of donated
organs was also largely unaffected, according to several sources in the organ
transplantation world.

Most organs are not transported on commercial flights, said Anne Paschke, a
spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, the organization
that manages the U.S. organ transplantation system under contract with the
federal government. The organs are instead transported on chartered flights or
hospital helicopters, or, when traveling shorter distances, they are driven to
their destination.

The system that matches organs with recipients did go down, however. It was out
for about an hour in the early hours of Friday, but was “back online” before
2:30 a.m., according to a statement from UNOS.

For many, the issues at hospitals came as a surprise.


Ian Philp, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., said his family arrived at Maimonides
Medical Center on Friday morning, only to learn that his son’s tonsil and
adenoid operation had been called off. The family had not received a call about
the cancellation, Mr. Philp said, nor could they reschedule: The scheduling
system was down.

His son, who is 7, was relieved, Mr. Philp said. “He gets a free day, but he was
sad he was not going to have an all-ice-cream diet for a week.”

Citing the “global IT outage,” Maimonides Medical Center said on social media
that it had canceled some nonessential procedures, but that “we remain open and
patients continue to receive safe, high-quality care.”

Reporting was contributed by Isabella Kwai, Megan Specia, Rachel Nostrant, Joe
Rennison and Jonathan Wolfe.

Show more
July 19, 2024, 2:36 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:36 p.m. ET

Jonathan Wolfe

Adding to the headaches for travelers, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said
it was also experiencing processing delays because of the outage, warning of
"longer than normal wait times" at ports of entry.

Image

Credit...Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

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July 19, 2024, 2:22 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:22 p.m. ET

David McCabe and Kate Conger




HOW TO FIX A WINDOWS COMPUTER IMPACTED BY THE OUTAGE.

Image

Microsoft said it recommended its customers follow CrowdStrike’s
guidance.Credit...Grant Hindsley for The New York Times

An outage that crippled businesses around the world turned many Microsoft
computers into bricks overnight.

That means a lot of people are seeing the blue screen of death as computers
continually try to reboot. The issues stemmed from a faulty software update
delivered to Microsoft devices and servers from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity
company that mainly works to help protect bigger companies from attacks.

On Friday, CrowdStrike said it had issued a software update fix that should
repair the computers, and it posted instructions for manually fixing the
problem. Customers can also call the company. But cybersecurity experts said the
process might still be complicated.

Here’s what to do if you’re affected.


WHY IS YOUR COMPUTER CRASHING?

If your computer is bricked, you’re not alone. The problem, cybersecurity
experts say, is with a bug in an overnight update caused by a bad file, which
essentially sends the computers into an endless loop of reboots. That means the
fix that CrowdStrike sent may not be able to repair your systems from afar.

About 300 companies on the Fortune 500 list are CrowdStrike customers, and it is
the second-largest independent cybersecurity firm in the United States. If you
work for a big company that is affected, your I.T. department will most likely
need to be involved.

Adam Harrison, a managing director at FTI Consulting, which works with companies
on their cybersecurity strategies, said smaller businesses were “less likely” to
be using these kinds of security tools, although he added that many small
businesses relied on vendors or suppliers who did.


SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

The truth is you probably can’t do all that much. Cybersecurity experts are
saying that if a computer has entered a doomloop, it will most likely take an
expert to fix it.

If you do happen to be tech savvy, CrowdStrike has posted instructions advising
customers to put computers into a recovery mode. Then, you would need to delete
the file that is causing the problem.

But that might be more complicated than you’d expect, cybersecurity experts say.
For example, businesses may be operating hundreds or thousands of computers,
which would increase the work required to bring its systems back online, said
Mr. Harrison. Or, if you work at a retail store, the self-checkout kiosks
frequently don’t have mouses or keyboards — and there most likely isn’t an I.T.
specialist on site to help.

“There’s lots of complexity in solving this problem,” he said.

“This is millions of computers around the world,” said Mikko Hypponen, a
security expert and chief research officer at WithSecure, a cybersecurity
company. “Many of them are at home because of remote work. It’s going to take a
long while, several days if not weeks, to fix them all if you have to go and
physically touch every machine.”


CAN CROWDSTRIKE FIX THE ISSUE REMOTELY?

Not necessarily. CrowdStrike has tweaked the faulty update already. That means
computers that did not already download the software won’t crash.

But machines that are already affected by the issue are stuck in a loop where
they keep rebooting, making it harder to update them from afar. It is possible
that CrowdStrike or someone else will come up with a way to automate the process
of fixing the problem, which could make it easier for you or your employer to
address the issue.

George Kurtz, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, said in an interview with the
“Today” show that the update had been able to break through to some computers
while they were rebooting, allowing them to receive the fix automatically. But
many computers remain offline, and will require a manual fix.


WHAT ARE MICROSOFT AND CROWDSTRIKE SAYING ABOUT THE OUTAGE?

In a post on X, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, said, “We are
aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the
industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring
their systems back online.”

In a separate statement, Microsoft said to contact CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike
advised customers who communicated through official channels.

“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the
inconvenience and disruption,” Mr. Kurtz said in a statement. “We are working
with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can
deliver the services their customers are counting on.”

Reporting was contributed by Meaghan Tobin.


Show more
July 19, 2024, 2:12 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:12 p.m. ET

Heather Knight

Reporting from San Francisco



COURTS CLOSE NATIONWIDE, AND HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S CASE IS DELAYED.

Image

The State Supreme Court in Manhattan was among the institutions to be affected
on Friday.Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Court systems across the country were severely affected by the global outage,
with some open only for emergencies and others closing their doors altogether.

In New York City, one particularly notable case was affected: A hearing in the
sex crimes case of Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul, was delayed
nearly two hours.

Image

State Supreme Court computers in Manhattan suffered outages like countless
computers worldwide.Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Judge Curtis Farber noted that Mr. Weinstein had been transported to the
courthouse from the Rikers Island jail complex on time, but that the hearing was
pushed back because of “disruption to the computer systems both in the courts
and corrections.”

Some court appointments elsewhere were not happening at all. In Philadelphia,
city courts were closed, and the entire Maryland judiciary system said it was
open only for “emergency matters.” In Montgomery County, Md., some couples were
milling around the courthouse hoping to get their marriage licenses, but they
were eventually forced to delay their happily-ever-after at least for a while.

The Los Angeles Superior Court system, one of the largest in the country, was
experiencing major connectivity issues. Court matters in which people were to
appear remotely would be rescheduled, the court said.

Elsewhere in California, several courthouses — including in San Diego, Orange
County, Alameda and Santa Clara — were open but experiencing delays. San
Francisco’s courthouses were not affected, said a spokeswoman, Ann Donlan.

Show more

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July 19, 2024, 2:11 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:11 p.m. ET

Ella Koeze

Airlines have started to resume flights after thousands were canceled earlier on
Friday. At points, the cancelations amounted to nearly 8 percent of all
scheduled departures around the world.


HOW THE AIRLINE CANCELLATIONS RIPPLED AROUND THE WORLD (AND ACROSS TIME ZONES)

Share of canceled flights at 25 airports on Friday

Graphic showing the share of canceled flights every 10 minutes at 25 different
airports since 1:20 a.m. ET on July 19.

50% of flights

Airport

Bengaluru Kempegowda

0%

Dhaka Shahjalal

Minneapolis-Saint Paul

Stuttgart

Melbourne

Berlin Brandenburg

Zurich

Istanbul

London City

Amsterdam Schiphol

Chicago O'Hare

Raleigh−Durham

Bradley

Atlanta

LaGuardia

Norfolk

Richmond

Charlotte

Detroit

Reagan National

Philadelphia

Houston

Cancún

Dulles

Tucson

1:20 a.m. ET

8 a.m. ET

50% of flights

Airport

Bengaluru Kempegowda

0%

Dhaka Shahjalal

Minneapolis-Saint Paul

Stuttgart

Melbourne

Berlin Brandenburg

Zurich

Istanbul

London City

Amsterdam Schiphol

Chicago O'Hare

Raleigh−Durham

Bradley

Atlanta

LaGuardia

Norfolk

Richmond

Charlotte

Detroit

Reagan National

Philadelphia

Houston

Cancún

Dulles

Tucson

1:20 a.m. ET

8 a.m. ET

Data as of 11:22 a.m. ET on July 19.

Source: Flightradar24

By Ella Koeze

July 19, 2024, 2:00 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:00 p.m. ET

Aaron Krolik

This was not the first CrowdStrike outage in recent months. On April 19,
CrowdStrike released an update to customers running their Linux product that
similarly crashed their systems. The April bug, which appears to be unrelated to
today’s, took the CrowdStrike team nearly five days to fix.

July 19, 2024, 2:01 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 2:01 p.m. ET

Aaron Krolik

In a report sent to affected customers, the company attributed the issue to
“human error.” CrowdStrike promised to improve its testing, and to “remove the
potential for human error.”

July 19, 2024, 1:56 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 1:56 p.m. ET

Kate Conger

The widespread outage raised concerns about how many corporations and
governments rely on just a handful of cybersecurity companies to protect them.
“When it comes to cybersecurity, we talk about defense in depth — having a moat
and then archers and a gate around the castle,” said Matt Mitchell, a hacker and
founder of CryptoHarlem, a cybersecurity education and advocacy organization.
But, he added, "We are creating a situation where there is a single point of
failure.”

July 19, 2024, 1:48 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 1:48 p.m. ET

Eli Tan

The Port of Houston and the Port of Long Beach said they had fully resumed
shipping operations after experiencing outages overnight and this morning. Some
of the country’s other large ports – Los Angeles, Savannah, New York and New
Jersey – have not seen any disruptions.

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July 19, 2024, 1:35 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 1:35 p.m. ET

Jill Cowan

Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, declared a city emergency early on Friday morning
after some of the city’s computer systems, including ones used in 911 dispatch
operations, crashed as a result of the CrowdStrike outages. City officials
emphasized that emergency dispatch services went back to normal by about 6 a.m.
on Friday, and city services continued throughout the morning, but residents
should expect delays in getting non-emergency calls answered.

July 19, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 1:09 p.m. ET

Jonathan Wolfe

The outage affected “all of our hospitals” said Steve Shivinsky, a spokesman for
Kaiser Permanente medical system, who called the situation “unprecedented.” “In
some situations, we have activated backup systems to support both continuous
patient care and to secure access to medical records,” he said. Kaiser's system
runs 40 hospitals, more than 600 medical offices and provides care to 12.6
million members across the country.

Image

Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times
July 19, 2024, 12:56 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:56 p.m. ET

Kate Conger

While little-known outside the security industry, CrowdStrike has built a
sterling reputation as the first line of defense against complex cyberattacks.
The company, which is worth about $76 billion, investigated the 2014 hack of
Sony Pictures and the hack-and-leak operation of the D.N.C. in 2016 that led to
the exposure of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

July 19, 2024, 12:53 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:53 p.m. ET

Cecilia Kang




WHY A SECURITY UPDATE TO MICROSOFT DEVICES DISRUPTED THE ECONOMY.

Image

Microsoft’s annual engineering and development conference in Seattle in
May.Credit...Grant Hindsley for The New York Times

The global technology outage has put a spotlight on how Microsoft, the
second-most valuable publicly traded company, is a major provider of software
and cloud services for businesses and governments globally.

The tech behemoth, based in Redmond, Wa., has a $3.25 trillion market
capitalization, more than the economic output of the United Kingdom, France or
Mexico measured in gross domestic product.

Its cloud business, Azure, is a market leader and comprises giant computer
server farms around the world that host the data of thousands of corporations
and governments. It manufactures computers, and its Windows operating system
software is widely used.

That scope makes an outage like the one on Friday painful.

In a statement posted to X, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, said
that CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, had released the update that affected
I.T. systems.

“We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across
the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring
their systems back online,” he said.

Microsoft’s ubiquity as a vendor for government agencies was raised during a
hearing on a security breach that affected the tech giant last month. Lawmakers
said the company provided an estimated 85 percent of the federal government’s
productivity software with tools like Office and Excel. Microsoft is also one of
the top cloud providers for the government, including for the Department of
Defense.

“Microsoft is one of the federal government’s most important technology and
security partners, but we cannot allow the importance of that relationship
enable complacency or interfere with our oversight,” Representative Bennie
Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, said in the hearing, held by the Homeland
Security committee.

Consumer interest and security groups say the widespread tech failure shows the
danger of the company’s expansive grip on commercial and public sector markets.

“Today’s massive I.T. outage — potentially the biggest in history — is a clear
demonstration of the dangerous and growing levels of concentration in our
critical technology systems,” said Max von Thun, a director at the Open Markets
Institute, a public advocacy group focused on antitrust law and policy.

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July 19, 2024, 12:42 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:42 p.m. ET

Kate Conger

Some tech titans indicated that the outage was enough to make them stop using
CrowdStrike. “We just deleted CrowdStrike from all our systems,” Elon Musk, the
chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, wrote on X.

> We just deleted Crowdstrike from all our systems, so no rollouts at all
> 
> — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2024

July 19, 2024, 12:36 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:36 p.m. ET

David McCabe

“Yesterday, CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems
globally,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said on X. “We are aware
of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry
to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their
systems back online.”

July 19, 2024, 12:22 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:22 p.m. ET

Robert Chiarito

Reporting from Milwaukee




SOME REPUBLICAN DELEGATES FIND THEIR MILWAUKEE STAYS HAVE BEEN EXTENDED.

Image

Passengers at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport lining up on
Friday.Credit...Leo Ramirez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Some delegates at the Republican National Convention found themselves stuck at
Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport, running into delays and cancellations
resulting from the global technology outage as they tried to head home.

Michael Holderness, a delegate from Sarasota, Fla., was considering driving 20
hours rather than being stuck at the airport. He recalled spending two days in
December 2022 in Nashville after Southwest Airlines experienced computer
problems. This time, he said, he did not want to wait for another flight after
spending four days on the convention floor.

“I am trying to rent a car right now,” Mr. Holderness, 53, said. Aware that the
flight problems might lead to a scramble for car rentals, he added, “I’ll rent a
U-Haul if I have to.”

Rob Wilkes, 36, a U.S. Coast Guard member and a delegate trying to return to New
Orleans, said he and two colleagues were thinking about renting a car to drive
to Minneapolis to make their connecting flight, which still appeared to be on
time.

“I’m just annoyed,” he said. “Waking up first thing in the morning hearing this
is frustrating.”

John Regan, 88, a delegate from Huntington, Ind., was also trying to reach
Minneapolis. After hearing about the outage, he arrived at the Milwaukee airport
four hours early. He is scheduled to present his son, a dentist, with a
fellowship at the Academy of General Dentistry on Saturday.

Mr. Regan felt “pretty confident” that he would be able to make it.

Instead of waiting around, Cheryl Meads, a 64-year-old from Hobe Sound, Fla.,
who attended the convention as part of a delegation from the Republican
Governors Association, decided to stay an extra day in Milwaukee after her Delta
Air Lines flight was canceled.

While the R.N.C. was taking place, she did not have much time to explore the
city, she added. Now, she said, she could “actually have fun.”

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July 19, 2024, 12:16 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:16 p.m. ET

Isabella Kwai

Reporting from London

Banner Health, a large healthcare system based in Phoenix, that operates
hospitals and healthcare facilities across six states, said that it had been
impacted by the I.T. outage. It closed clinics, urgent care and other outpatient
facilities on Friday but said that hospitals would remain open for inpatient
care and medical emergencies.

July 19, 2024, 12:13 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:13 p.m. ET

Heather Knight

Reporting from San Francisco

U.S. public transit systems seem to be weathering the outage OK, with some
delays and signal problems but nowhere near the chaos at airports. Maybe their
old-school nature helped. Erica Kato, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco
Municipal Transportation System, which runs the city's buses, trains and iconic
cable cars, said the agency's main systems are not even connected to the
internet. "Long live floppy disks, I guess!" she said.

July 19, 2024, 12:10 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:10 p.m. ET

Jill Cowan

The Los Angeles County Superior Court system, one of the largest in the nation,
was experiencing “system-wide connectivity issues,” according to a statement.
Any business where people were set to appear remotely on Friday would be
rescheduled, it said.

July 19, 2024, 12:08 p.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 12:08 p.m. ET

Isabella Kwai, Jonathan Wolfe and Jill Cowan




911 SYSTEMS WERE DISRUPTED IN AT LEAST 3 STATES.

Image

Firefighters in San Francisco had to respond to about 20 alarms between 2:34
a.m. and 2:50 a.m.Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times

Emergency call systems in at least three states were hit by the widespread
CrowdStrike technology outage, although most major U.S. cities avoided problems
overnight.

In Oregon, some 911 centers, hospitals, airports, and public safety and
emergency management agencies had major effects, said Erin Zysett, a spokeswoman
for the Oregon Department of Emergency Management.

“Our I.T. teams are working very fast to apply the fixes that CrowdStrike has
provided, and those impacts are being mitigated quickly,” she said, adding that
statewide alert systems and public safety incident tracking systems were mostly
unaffected.

Emergency dispatchers in Portland, Ore., were forced to work without the help of
crucial computer systems for several hours and had to work “manually,” Mila
Mimica, a city spokeswoman, said in a statement. As of 6 a.m., however, the
computer systems were back to working normally.

In Phoenix, the outage affected a computerized 911 dispatch center, Police
Department officials said, but the city’s 911 centers were still operating.
Dispatchers were still able to field calls, but they had to record
communications on paper. The 911 call center was restored by about 6 a.m., the
Phoenix police said.

In Alaska, problems began to emerge on Thursday night. Call centers across the
state for many 911 emergency lines stopped working correctly because of “a
nationwide technology-related outage,” the Alaska State Troopers said on social
media.

Some dispatch centers lost use of their digital call systems and had to switch
to analog phones or rely on other dispatch centers that were still functioning,
said Austin McDaniel, the communications director for the Alaska Department of
Public Safety. The problems were fully resolved around 4 a.m. local time, he
added.

Emergency service outages have already affected services this year. In April,
residents had problems calling 911 in parts of Nebraska and Texas, the entire
state of South Dakota and Las Vegas. Last month, emergency agencies in
Massachusetts scrambled to communicate with the public and directed them to
alternative numbers after a firewall unintentionally prevented calls from
getting through.

The outage on Friday led to a very busy 16 minutes for the San Francisco Fire
Department. Between 2:34 a.m. and 2:50 a.m, 20 fire alarms in buildings around
the city blared, prompting firefighters to respond to each one. The alarms were
all false and apparently caused by the CrowdStrike outage, said Lt. Jonathan
Baxter, a department spokesman.

Agencies in most large cities, however, said on Friday that their emergency
communications systems were running as usual. In New York, the 911 system was
functioning and emergency response was unaffected, a New York Police Department
spokesman said. The authorities in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Miami
also reported that their 911 systems were unaffected.

The outages affected less urgent government operations in some areas of the
country. The Department of Motor Vehicles offices in Georgia, Ohio and Indiana
said that they had been disrupted or were expecting potential outages. In
Hudson, a suburb about 40 minutes south of Cleveland, utility billing and phone
systems were down. Hudson closed its City Hall for the day.

Rick Rojas, Rachel Nostrant, Heather Knight, Kate Selig and Patricia Mazzei
contributed reporting.

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July 19, 2024, 11:50 a.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 11:50 a.m. ET

Mark Walker

Airlines began the day by saying they didn’t owe stranded passengers anything
more than rebooked flights with waived fees. But the Transportation Department
said that the software outage is considered within the airlines’ control. This
means they must follow through on their commitments to travelers, which
fluctuate but could include paying for hotel rooms, ground transportation and
meal vouchers.

July 19, 2024, 11:42 a.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 11:42 a.m. ET

Heather Knight

Reporting from San Francisco

The outage led to a very busy 16 minutes for the San Francisco Fire Department.
Between 2:34 and 2:50 a.m., firefighters responded to 20 fire alarms in
buildings around the city. The alarms were all false and all apparently caused
by the outage, a fire department spokesperson said.

Image

Credit...Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times
July 19, 2024, 11:41 a.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 11:41 a.m. ET

Rob Copeland

TD Bank, the 10th largest in the U.S., confirmed it had been impacted by the
outage. The bank’s customers have filled social media with complaints that they
cannot access their online accounts. “Teams are working hard to restore all
online banking and other impacted systems,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.

Image

Credit...Owen Davies for The New York Times


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July 19, 2024, 11:01 a.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 11:01 a.m. ET

Derek M. Norman, Christine Chung and Ceylan Yeğinsu




FLYING TODAY? WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GLOBAL TECH OUTAGE.

Image

Crowds at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on
Friday, caught up in a technology outage that affected a worldwide range of
systems, including 911 services and airline check-ins. Credit...Stephanie
Scarbrough/Associated Press
Sign up for the Travel Dispatch newsletter.  Essential news on the changing
travel landscape, expert tips and inspiration for your future trips. Get it sent
to your inbox.

While commercial air service was slowly recovering on Friday after a technology
outage caused thousands of flights worldwide to be canceled or delayed, the
ripple effect from the disruption left airports crowded with passengers and
airlines working to get planes and crews back in position.

“These flights, they run so tightly, so back to back, that even after a root
cause is addressed, you can still be feeling those impacts throughout the day,”
said Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, in an appearance on CNBC.

The outage was caused by a flawed update from the cybersecurity firm
CrowdStrike, whose software is widely used around the world. At United Airlines,
for example, the outage affected technology used to calculate aircraft weight,
check in customers and operate call-center phone systems.

Throughout Friday, messages that travelers posted on social media showed flights
grounded worldwide, some terminal monitors down and crowds of stranded
passengers waiting at airport gates and customer service desks. At airports in
India and South Korea, some passengers stood in long lines to obtain handwritten
boarding passes.


ARE FLIGHTS STILL GROUNDED?

Since the initial outage, service is slowly resuming, but the number of global
delays and cancellations has continued to increase throughout the day.

Worldwide, around 110,000 commercial flights were scheduled on Friday, and
around 5,117 of those flights, or 4.6 percent, have been canceled, according to
Cirium, an aviation data company. In the United States, the number of
cancellations stood at more than 2,300 — or about 9 percent of daily flights —
as of Friday afternoon.

Fewer than half of the flights today in the United States left on time, the
others departing with delays of a half-hour or longer, according to Cirium.

Delays at some airports in the United States were well beyond an hour, according
to data from the Federal Aviation Administration. The average delays at Kennedy
International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the world’s
busiest airport, were nearly three hours.


WHICH AIRLINES ARE MOST AFFECTED?

In the United States, at least five carriers — Allegiant Air, American Airlines,
Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines and United — temporarily grounded flights,
according to the F.A.A.

As of about 4 p.m. Eastern, more than 830 Delta flights had been canceled, and
more than 1,220 had been delayed. American was reporting more than 360 flights
canceled and more than 1,040 delayed. More than 380 United flights had been
canceled and more than 1,260 were delayed, according to FlightAware.

The Dutch airline KLM canceled around 41 percent of flights on Friday, according
to FlightAware. It has begun to recover, but advises passengers to check their
flight status online before traveling. “We urge passengers not to come to the
airport if their flight is not departing or is severely delayed,” the airline
said in a statement.


WHY WEREN’T SOME AIRLINES, LIKE SOUTHWEST, AFFECTED?

Southwest, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways barely scrapped any flights on
Friday. A spokesperson for Southwest said, “The outage did not directly affect
our operations,” but did not elaborate on why.

Alaska does not use CrowdStrike, and its operations were “mostly unimpacted,”
said Tricia Bruckbauer, a spokeswoman for the airline.


WHICH AIRPORTS HAVE BEEN HIT THE WORST?

In the United States, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta appeared to have the most
flights affected by the outage, with a total of more than 590 incoming and
outgoing flights canceled and more than 780 flights delayed as of midafternoon
on Friday, according to FlightAware.

Many other airports, including hubs in New York, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C.,
also appeared to experience significant disruption. J.F.K. advised passengers
not to show up to the airport without confirming flight status.

The outage also affected major airports in Europe. Several airlines at Schiphol
Airport in Amsterdam were unable to gain access to their check-in systems. The
systems have since restarted, and the airport said it was working with airlines
to “get all passengers to their destinations as quickly as possible.”

London’s busiest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, said they were using
contingency systems to get around the outage, but both were still reporting
delays for almost half of their incoming and outgoing scheduled flights.

Hong Kong International Airport had to switch to manual check-in, but the
airport reported that flight operations were not affected.


I’M FLYING TODAY. WHAT CAN I DO?

Pack patience.

Delta, United, American, and Spirit have issued flight waivers allowing
passengers to rebook without any additional fees. The terms and applicable
airports vary. Generally, passengers are required to depart within a week.

Travelers can usually check itineraries through the airline’s website or app,
but some travelers on Friday reported difficulties rebooking through the Delta
and United apps.

You can also contact airline customer service by phone, though travelers posting
on social media said that they had not been able to reach agents. But there are
a few tricks you can try aside from the primary hotline: U.S. airlines have
overseas customer service phone lines, easily found on the internet, and those
agents can help too.

FlightAware can offer detailed data about delays and cancellations, and which
airports are most affected, in real time.


WHAT ARE MY RIGHTS IF MY FLIGHT IS DELAYED OR CANCELED?

You may be entitled to certain compensation — such as airline-provided hotel or
meal vouchers — detailed on the Transportation Department’s Airline Customer
Service Dashboard.

The Transportation Department said the software outage is considered within
airlines’ control and that airlines must follow through on their commitments to
travelers, which for most United States-based carriers include complimentary
ground transportation and accommodation for those affected by overnight delays
and cancellations, as well as meal vouchers for waits exceeding three hours.
Travelers should not expect to have this compensation offered to them, but are
within their rights to ask the airlines for it.

“We have reminded the airlines of their responsibilities to take care of
passengers if they experience major delays,” Mr. Buttigieg said in his CNBC
appearance on Friday.

Passengers’ rights can differ for international flights. For example, in the
European Union, cancellations or long delays may give you the right to a refund,
a replacement flight and financial compensation. Passengers on flights delayed
overnight may receive reimbursement for food, accommodations and ground
transportation. (Travelers should hold on to any receipts for costs incurred.)


I HAVE A CRUISE TO CATCH. WILL I GET A REFUND IF I MISS THE SHIP?

Cruise lines typically do not provide refunds, rebooking or any other
concessions if flight disruptions cause travelers to miss their cruise
departure, and the large companies are not making exceptions now.

But things look brighter for Carnival and Royal Caribbean passengers who booked
their airfare through the cruise lines. Should they miss their departure, those
travelers can expect benefits including coverage for flights, hotels and ground
transportation to get them to the next port of call.

“Regrettably, air service disruptions — whether technological or weather — are
beyond our company’s control,” said Chris Chiames, the chief communication
officer for Carnival. “We always encourage our guests to purchase travel
insurance, and today’s news is an important reminder of why.”


I HAVE TRAVEL INSURANCE. AM I COVERED?

Travel insurance companies are expecting an influx of claims, mostly for delays
and missed connections, as a result of the outage.

One agency, InsureMyTrip, anticipated more than 1,600 of its customers could be
affected by the outage, said Suzanne Morrow, the company’s chief executive.
Policyholders may be entitled to coverage for their expenses related to delays,
as well as coverage for any missed connecting flights, she said.

Any travelers hoping to file a travel insurance claim related to the outage
should make sure to keep all their receipts or bills to show proof of purchase,
as well as check their insurance plan or policy and file a claim right away.

Mark Walker contributed reporting from Washington.

Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel
Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for
your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling?
Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2024.

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July 19, 2024, 8:59 a.m. ETJuly 19, 2024
July 19, 2024, 8:59 a.m. ET

Michael J. de la Merced and Joe Rennison

Reporting from London and New York




BANKS WERE HIT WITH SHORT-LIVED GLITCHES, BUT TRADING IN THE U.S. BEGAN AS
EXPECTED.

Image

Employees at companies including JPMorgan Chase have had trouble gaining access
to their work stations, according to people with knowledge of the
matter.Credit...Owen Davies for The New York Times

Financial transactions around the world were affected by a short-lived tech
outage on Friday, hampering operations as workers struggled to log into their
corporate systems.

Employees at companies including JPMorgan Chase and Instinet, a brokerage firm
owned by the Japanese bank Nomura, had trouble gaining access to their work
stations, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on
condition of anonymity. That led to delays in some trades as the companies
rushed to find workarounds, the people said. By midday in New York, trading
seemed to be functioning normally.

Customers of TD Bank, the 10th largest in the United States, turned to social
media to complain they could not access their online accounts. “Teams are
working hard” to restore services, a bank spokeswoman said.

Earlier, the London Stock Exchange said that its RNS corporate news service was
unable to publish, citing a “third-party global technical issue.” The exchange
operator added that the matter was not affecting securities trading and other
services.

Norway’s central bank said that it suffered disruptions when conducting a
securities auction on Friday, with participants having been asked to submit bids
by phone or email.

However, the disruptions proved relatively short lived. In Norway, the central
bank later said that the system was operating normally. Other central banks,
including the Bank of England and the European Central Bank, said they had not
experienced any technical issues.

By midday many other institutions also said they were operating as normal, with
only pockets of disruption still causing problems for a small number of firms.
Financial markets opened as usual, with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq
both reporting their markets were working as normal.

The S&P 500 fell modestly, down 0.6 percent by the afternoon. The tech-heavy
Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.7 percent. Airlines, which had grounded some planes
because of technical difficulties, were mixed, with Southwest dropping 1.5
percent while United recovered from earlier losses to trade up almost 1 percent.
International Airlines Group, which includes British Airways and Aer Lingus,
ended the day in London 2.2 percent lower.

Insurance businesses W.R. Berkley and Travelers Companies each fell by more than
7 percent. Intel also suffered, down over 5 percent.

Still, the sharpest drop came from CrowdStrike itself, the cybersecurity company
whose software update sparked the outages. The company’s shares fell by as much
as 15.4 percent, before it too moderated to a loss of just over 10 percent.

Despite calm returning to trading, the news will add to nerves over the
tech-driven stock rally, which has broken through historical norms, basing its
thunderous rise on the enthusiasm around artificial intelligence.

Microsoft, one of the primary beneficiaries of A.I. fervor that was also wrapped
up in the CrowdStrike outage, fell just 0.6 percent, but that move came having
already tumbled over 5 percent from its high point this month. CrowdStrike had
also already dropped 12.5 percent from its July peak through Thursday.

Eshe Nelson contributed reporting from London, and Claire Fahy and Rob Copeland
from New York.

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