Banks, airlines, brokerage houses report widespread outages across the globe | TechCrunch

Businesses worldwide are experiencing outages, including Windows “blue screen of death” errors on their computers, in what has already become one of the most widespread disruptions in recent years. The problems are affecting various sectors, from banks, food chains, brokerage houses, news organizations to airlines.

The issue appears to be impacting firms — and numerous of their customers — globally. The London Stock Exchange, Edinburgh airport, and Ryan Air reported facing disruptions in their services. The airline blamed a “third-party IT issue.” Several businesses and security experts have pointed fingers at the security firm CrowdStrike for the outages.

Indian airlines IndiGo, Akasa, and SpiceJet reported that their check-in systems in some of the airports weren’t functional anymore, warning passengers that their flights might be delayed as a result. The Delhi Airport said a global outage had knocked down some of its services. South China Morning Post is reporting that airports in Hong Kong are also having problems.

UK news broadcaster Sky News faced trouble broadcasting live much of this morning due to the outage, the firm’s executive chairman David Rhodes tweeted. New Zealand Herald reported that banking services in the country were affected by the issue, too. Boarding scanners at UK airports are facing disruption too, according to Sky News.

Many customers have reported being unable to restart their computers due to the issue. This outage comes shortly after Microsoft confirmed service problems with its Microsoft 365 apps late Thursday, which affected several airlines including Delta and United.

It’s unclear what has caused the issue, but some businesses, including Australian energy company AGL, blamed an update from security firm CrowdStrike.

The security firm didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

A moderator of the CrowdStrike subreddit said the company was aware of “widespread reports” of blue screen errors on Windows devices across multiple versions of its software. The firm was investigating the cause, the message read.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates. Ram Iyer contributed to this report.