Worldwide Tech Outage Disrupts Flights, Banks And Media Outlets

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack — and that a fix was on the way. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

But hours after the problem was first detected, the disarray continued — and escalated.

Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services at a time when many travelers are heading away on summer vacations. News outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.

Some athletes and spectators descending on Paris ahead of the Olympics were delayed, but Games organizers said disruptions were limited and didn’t affect ticketing or the torch relay.

DownDectector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused by the outage because systems we’ve come to rely on at critical