www.theguardian.com Open in urlscan Pro
151.101.129.111  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

https://www.google.co.uk/search

<form action="https://www.google.co.uk/search" class="dcr-1jjnk9d"><label for="gu-search" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">Search input </div>
  </label><input type="text" id="gu-search" aria-required="true" aria-invalid="false" aria-describedby="" required="" name="q" placeholder="Search the Guardian" data-link-name="header : search" tabindex="-1"
    class="selectableMenuItem dcr-qcy5wo"><label for="gu-search" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">google-search </div>
    <div class="dcr-radnun"><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
        <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd"
          d="M9.273 2c4.023 0 7.25 3.295 7.25 7.273a7.226 7.226 0 0 1-7.25 7.25C5.25 16.523 2 13.296 2 9.273 2 5.295 5.25 2 9.273 2m0 1.84A5.403 5.403 0 0 0 3.84 9.274c0 3 2.409 5.454 5.432 5.454 3 0 5.454-2.454 5.454-5.454 0-3.023-2.454-5.432-5.454-5.432m7.295 10.887L22 20.16 20.16 22l-5.433-5.432v-.932l.91-.909z">
        </path>
      </svg><span class="dcr-1p0hins">Search</span></div>
  </label><button type="submit" aria-live="polite" aria-label="Search with Google" data-link-name="header : search : submit" tabindex="-1" class="dcr-1gsboxi">
    <div class="src-button-space"></div><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
      <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M1 12.956h18.274l-7.167 8.575.932.932L23 12.478v-.956l-9.96-9.985-.932.932 7.166 8.575H1z"></path>
    </svg>
  </button><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="www.theguardian.com"></form>

https://www.google.co.uk/search

<form action="https://www.google.co.uk/search" class="dcr-1jjnk9d"><label for="gu-search" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">Search input </div>
  </label><input type="text" id="gu-search" aria-required="true" aria-invalid="false" aria-describedby="" required="" name="q" placeholder="Search the Guardian" data-link-name="header : search" tabindex="-1"
    class="selectableMenuItem dcr-qcy5wo"><label for="gu-search" class="dcr-0">
    <div class="dcr-6v110l">google-search </div>
    <div class="dcr-radnun"><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
        <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd"
          d="M9.273 2c4.023 0 7.25 3.295 7.25 7.273a7.226 7.226 0 0 1-7.25 7.25C5.25 16.523 2 13.296 2 9.273 2 5.295 5.25 2 9.273 2m0 1.84A5.403 5.403 0 0 0 3.84 9.274c0 3 2.409 5.454 5.432 5.454 3 0 5.454-2.454 5.454-5.454 0-3.023-2.454-5.432-5.454-5.432m7.295 10.887L22 20.16 20.16 22l-5.433-5.432v-.932l.91-.909z">
        </path>
      </svg><span class="dcr-1p0hins">Search</span></div>
  </label><button type="submit" aria-live="polite" aria-label="Search with Google" data-link-name="header : search : submit" tabindex="-1" class="dcr-1gsboxi">
    <div class="src-button-space"></div><svg width="30" viewBox="-3 -3 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" aria-hidden="true">
      <path fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" d="M1 12.956h18.274l-7.167 8.575.932.932L23 12.478v-.956l-9.96-9.985-.932.932 7.166 8.575H1z"></path>
    </svg>
  </button><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="www.theguardian.com"></form>

Text Content

Skip to main contentSkip to navigation
Close dialogue1/1Next imagePrevious imageToggle caption
Skip to navigation


SUPPORT THE GUARDIAN

Fund independent journalism with €12 per month
Support us

Support us
Print subscriptions
Search jobs
Sign in
Eur
 * Europe edition
 * UK edition
 * US edition
 * Australia edition
 * International edition

The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian
 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

Show moreHide expanded menu
 * News
   * View all News
   * World news
   * US politics
   * UK news
   * Climate crisis
   * Middle East
   * Ukraine
   * Environment
   * Science
   * Global development
   * Football
   * Tech
   * Business
   * Obituaries
   
 * Opinion
   * View all Opinion
   * The Guardian view
   * Columnists
   * Cartoons
   * Opinion videos
   * Letters
   
 * Sport
   * View all Sport
   * Football
   * Cricket
   * Rugby union
   * Tennis
   * Cycling
   * F1
   * Golf
   * US sports
   
 * Culture
   * View all Culture
   * Books
   * Music
   * TV & radio
   * Art & design
   * Film
   * Games
   * Classical
   * Stage
   
 * Lifestyle
   * View all Lifestyle
   * Fashion
   * Food
   * Recipes
   * Love & sex
   * Health & fitness
   * Home & garden
   * Women
   * Men
   * Family
   * Travel
   * Money
   Search input
   google-search
   Search
   
   
    * Support us
    * Print subscriptions

 * * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Licensing
   * About Us
   * The Guardian app
   * Video
   * Podcasts
   * Pictures
   * Newsletters
   * Today's paper
   * Inside the Guardian
   * The Observer
   * Guardian Weekly
   * Crosswords
   * Wordiply
   * Corrections
 * Search input
   google-search
   Search
   
   * Search jobs
   * Holidays
   * Digital Archive
   * Guardian Licensing
   * About Us

 * World
 * US politics
 * UK
 * Climate crisis
 * Middle East
 * Ukraine
 * Environment
 * Science
 * Global development
 * Football
 * Tech
 * Business
 * Obituaries


A screen above the entrance to the baggage claim area on Friday 19 July at the
Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine. Photograph: Gregory Rec/AP
View image in fullscreen
A screen above the entrance to the baggage claim area on Friday 19 July at the
Portland International Jetport in Portland, Maine. Photograph: Gregory Rec/AP
Microsoft IT outage

This article is more than 4 months old


SLOW RECOVERY FROM IT OUTAGE BEGINS AS EXPERTS WARN OF FUTURE RISKS

This article is more than 4 months old

Fault in CrowdStrike caused airports, businesses and healthcare services to
languish in ‘largest outage in history’

 * Global IT outage: live updates

Dan Milmo, Julia Kollewe, Ben Quinn, Josh Taylor and Mimi Ibrahim
Sat 20 Jul 2024 03.25 CESTFirst published on Fri 19 Jul 2024 08.51 CEST
Share




Services began to come back online on Friday evening after an IT failure that
wreaked havoc worldwide. But full recovery could take weeks, experts have said,
after airports, healthcare services and businesses were hit by the “largest
outage in history”.

Flights and hospital appointments were cancelled, payroll systems seized up and
TV channels went off air after a botched software upgrade hit Microsoft’s
Windows operating system.



It came from the US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, and left workers facing a
“blue screen of death” as their computers failed to start. Experts said every
affected PC may have to be fixed manually, but as of Friday night some services
started to recover.

As recovery continues, experts say the outage underscored concerns that many
organizations are not well prepared to implement contingency plans when a single
point of failure such as an IT system, or a piece of software within it, goes
down. But these outages will happen again, experts say, until more contingencies
are built into networks and organizations introduce better back-ups.

In the UK, Whitehall crisis officials were coordinating the response through the
Cobra committee. Ministers were in touch with their sectors to tackle the
fallout from the IT failure, and the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, said she
was working “at pace with industry” after trains and flights were affected.

> Many people are being affected by today's IT outages impacting services across
> the country and globally.
> 
> Ministers are working with their sectors and respective industries on the
> issue.
> 
> I am in close contact with teams coordinating our response through the COBR
> response system
> 
> — Pat McFadden (@patmcfaddenmp) July 19, 2024

A Microsoft spokesperson said on Friday: “We’re aware of an issue affecting
Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We
anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.”

Texas-based CrowdStrike confirmed the outage was due to a software update from
one of its products and was not caused by a cyber-attack.

Its founder and chief executive, George Kurtz, said he was “deeply sorry for the
impact that we’ve caused to customers”, adding there had been a “negative
interaction” between the update and Microsoft’s operating system.

CrowdStrike’s stock price fell dramatically over the course of the day, dropping
by as much as 13% at some points in trading.

From trains to retail, how CrowdStrike outage caused havoc across industries
Read more

Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, said the outage caused “a seizure to the automotive
supply chain” while banks in Kenya and Ukraine reported issues with their
digital services, and supermarkets in Australia had problems with payments.

Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) – the parent company of Southern, Thameslink,
Gatwick Express and Great Northern – warned passengers to expect delays.

According to the service status monitoring website Downdetector, users in the UK
were reporting issues with the services of Visa, BT, big supermarket chains,
banks, online gaming platforms and media outlets.

The Sky News and CBBC channels were also temporarily off-air in the UK before
resuming broadcasting, while Australia’s ABC was also affected.

In financial services, Metro Bank reported problems with its phone lines in the
UK and Santander said card payments “may be affected”. Monzo said some customers
were reporting issues, while some bankers at JP Morgan were unable to log on to
their systems and the London Stock Exchange said there were problems with its
news service.

Troy Hunt, a leading cybersecurity consultant, said the scale of the IT failure
was unprecedented.

“I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in
history,” he tweeted.

“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually
happened this time,” he added, referring to the millennium bug that worried IT
experts in the run-up to 2000 – but ultimately did not cause serious damage.

The UK’s chartered institute for IT, the BCS, said it could take days and weeks
for systems to recover, although some fixes will be easier to implement.

“In some cases, the fix may be applied very quickly,” said Adam Leon Smith, a
BCS fellow. “But if computers have reacted in a way that means they’re getting
into blue screens and endless loops it may be difficult to restore and that
could take days and weeks.”

Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, said
the fix required a manual reboot of affected machines and “most standard users
would not know how to follow the instructions”. Organisations with thousands of
PCs distributed in different locations face a tougher task, he added.

“It’s just sheer numbers. For some organisations it could certainly take weeks,”
he said.

From Amsterdam to Zurich, Singapore to Hong Kong, airport operators flagged
technical issues that were disrupting their services. While some airports halted
all flights, in others airline staff had to check-in passengers manually.

Among the companies affected on Friday was Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline,
which said on its website: “Potential disruptions across the network due to a
global third-party system outage … We advise passengers to arrive at the airport
three hours in advance of their flight to avoid any disruptions.”

Heathrow, Europe’s biggest airport, said it was “working hard” to get passengers
“on their way”.

A spokesperson for Heathrow said: “We continue to work with our airport
colleagues to minimise the impact of the global IT outage on passenger journeys.
Flights continue to be operational and passengers are advised to check with
their airlines for the latest flight information.”

In the US, flights were grounded owing to communications problems that appear to
be linked to the outage. American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines were among
the carriers affected.

Berlin airport temporarily halted all flights on Friday. The aviation analytics
company Cirium said 5,078 flights – 4.6% of those scheduled – were cancelled
globally on Friday, including 167 UK departures and 171 arrivals.

0:56

Queues and blank screens at airports as Microsoft IT outage disrupts travel –
video

GP practices in the UK said they were unable to access patient records or book
appointments. Surgeries reported on social media that they could not access the
EMIS Web system.

It is understood that 999 services were unaffected by the outage, but the Royal
Surrey NHS Trust, in the south of England, declared a critical incident and
cancelled radiotherapy appointments scheduled for Friday morning. The National
Pharmacy Association confirmed that UK services could be affected.

A spokesperson for Keir Starmer said they were unaware of the problem having any
impact on government services, but added they recognised the impact it was
having more broadly. Reports from the Netherlands also suggested there may be
problems within the health service.

The Israeli health ministry said “the global malfunction” had affected 16
hospitals, while in Germany the Schleswig-Holstein university hospital in the
north of the country said it had cancelled all planned operations in Kiel and
Lübeck.

Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, issued an emergency declaration
stating that certain essential city services including emergency communications
were affected by the outage.

> We’re obviously not on air - we’re trying 🤞@SkyNews Breakfast
> pic.twitter.com/ZKvVacRgUY
> 
> — Jacquie Beltrao (@SkyJacquie) July 19, 2024

The University of Surrey’s Alan Woodward said the outage was caused by an IT
product called CrowdStrike Falcon which monitors the security of large networks
of PCs and downloads a piece of monitoring software to every machine.

“The product is used by large organisations that have significant numbers of PCs
to ensure everything is monitored. Sadly, if they lose all the PCs they can’t
operate, or only at a much reduced service level,” said Woodward.

Steven Murdoch, a professor of security engineering at University College
London, said many organisations could struggle to carry out the fix swiftly.

“The problem is occurring before the computer is connected to the internet so
there is no way to fix the problem remotely, so that requires someone to come
out … and fix the problem,” said Murdoch, adding that companies and
organisations that have cut back on IT staff or outsourced their IT work would
find their ability to address the problem hampered.

However, Ciaran Martin, the former chief executive of the National Cyber
Security Centre, said that unlike adversarial cyber-attacks, this problem had
already been identified and a solution had been flagged.

“The recovery is not about getting on top of the situation but getting back up.
I think it’s unlikely to be very newsworthy in terms of ongoing disruption this
time next week,” he said.

The problems for businesses in the US were also compounded by problems with
Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing business that occurred on Thursday.

Reuters contributed to this report

Explore more on these topics
 * Microsoft IT outage
 * Windows
 * Microsoft
 * Computing
 * Air transport
 * Health
 * Software
 * news

Share

Reuse this content


MOST VIEWED

 * ‘A LIVING HERO’: PHILIPPINES WELCOMES BACK DEATH ROW SURVIVOR MARY JANE
   VELOSO
   
   

 * ‘DARK DAY FOR NEW ZEALAND’: OUTCRY AS BILL TO FAST-TRACK CONTROVERSIAL MINING
   PROJECTS IS APPROVED
   
   

 * ‘VERY DISHEARTENED’: TRANS ACTOR SPEAKS OUT AS DISNEY CHANGES HER PIXAR
   CHARACTER TO BE CISGENDER
   
   

 * ‘SEVERAL HUNDRED’ NORTH KOREAN TROOPS KILLED FIGHTING UKRAINE, SAYS US
   OFFICIAL
   
   

 * KENYAN SINGLE MOTHERS ‘TRAPPED’ IN SAUDI ARABIA AS EXIT VISAS DENIED TO
   CHILDREN BORN OUTSIDE MARRIAGE
   
   




MORE ON THIS STORY






MORE ON THIS STORY




 * CROWDSTRIKE SAYS SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF DEVICES BACK ONLINE AFTER GLOBAL
   OUTAGE
   
   22 Jul 2024
   
   


 * THE OBSERVER VIEW ON THE GLOBAL IT CRASH: LESSONS MUST BE LEARNED FROM
   CROWDSTRIKE FIASCO
   
   20 Jul 2024
   
   


 * NHS ENGLAND WARNS OF DISRUPTION NEXT WEEK AS GLOBAL IT OUTAGE WREAKS HAVOC
   
   20 Jul 2024
   
   


 * GLOBAL IT OUTAGE SHOWS DANGERS OF CASHLESS SOCIETY, CAMPAIGNERS SAY
   
   20 Jul 2024
   
   


 * AIR PASSENGERS WARNED OF MORE DELAYS AFTER GLOBAL WINDOWS OUTAGE
   
   20 Jul 2024
   
   


 * WINDOWS IT OUTAGE: CROWDSTRIKE CEO ‘DEEPLY SORRY’ FOR GLOBAL CHAOS CAUSED BY
   UPDATE AND WARNS FIX MAY TAKE TIME TO WORK – AS IT HAPPENED
   
   19 Jul 2024
   
   


 * IS THE UK RESILIENT ENOUGH TO WITHSTAND A MAJOR CYBER-ATTACK?
   
   19 Jul 2024
   
   


 * US TRANSPORTATION, POLICE AND HOSPITAL SYSTEMS STRICKEN BY GLOBAL CROWDSTRIKE
   IT OUTAGE
   
   19 Jul 2024
   
   


 * WINDOWS GLOBAL IT OUTAGE: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR
   
   19 Jul 2024
   
   




MOST VIEWED


MOST VIEWED



 * World
 * US politics
 * UK
 * Climate crisis
 * Middle East
 * Ukraine
 * Environment
 * Science
 * Global development
 * Football
 * Tech
 * Business
 * Obituaries

 * News
 * Opinion
 * Sport
 * Culture
 * Lifestyle

Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
Sign up for our email

 * Help
 * Complaints & corrections
 * SecureDrop
 * Work for us
 *  
 * Privacy policy
 * Cookie policy
 * Terms & conditions
 * Contact us

 * All topics
 * All writers
 * Digital newspaper archive
 * Tax strategy
 * Facebook
 * YouTube
 * Instagram
 * LinkedIn
 * Newsletters

 * Advertise with us
 * Search UK jobs


Back to top
© 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights
reserved. (dcr)