Massive global IT outage grounds flights, disrupts banking, hits media

Shares for both CrowdStrike and Microsoft fell after news of the outage, the former’s stocks tumbling by 21% in premarket trading — representing a $16 billion loss for the company overnight, the BBC reported. Microsoft, meanwhile, lost 2% of its value before markets opened Friday. CrowdStrike shares have soared over the past 12 months, gaining 118% this year, CNBC reported. The company’s valuation is massive for the sector: As of close of business on Thursday, CrowdStrike was worth $83.5 billion.

The outage is impacting countries across the globe. “I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history,” Troy Hunt, a security consultant, wrote on X. “This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time.” Meanwhile CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz said the outage was not a cyberattack: The firm “is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” he wrote. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates.”

Around 1,400 flights have been canceled globally, the BBC reported, with airlines being some of the worst-hit services. Banking providers, including Visa, have experienced widespread crashes. In the UK, the National Health Service has said it is only accepting the most high-priority patients as the outage impacts the nation’s healthcare sector. Parts of the London Stock Exchange were not operational on Friday, but trading was unaffected. Some US states, including Alaska and Virginia, have reported issues with 911 services and non-emergency reporting lines. In Poland, a major shipping hub located in Gdansk was not operational because of the outage.