Widespread technology outage disrupts flights and banking in Minnesota and around the world

A global computer glitch apparently triggered by software distributed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused widespread global outages late Thursday and into Friday morning.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz confirmed Friday morning that his company was working to resolve the problem.

"CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," he wrote on X.

The problem affected airline communications, causing the Federal Aviation Administration to ground major carriers in the U.S., including American Airlines, Delta and United Airlines.

As of 7:15 a.m., Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was reporting more than 110 delayed or canceled flights amid the global internet outage. Delta, Sun Country, American and United flights were among those affected.

Delta grounded its flights earlier in the morning, though in an update just before 7 a.m. it said it had resumed some departures. Delta said it expected delays and cancellations to continue through the day and issued a travel waiver for passengers with flights Friday, allowing them to change their plans.

Minnesota-based Sun Country canceled all its flights scheduled to depart before 7 a.m. Central time. Beyond that, the airline said some flights would resume but it expected disruptions to continue through the morning.

Airport officials were advising anyone with flight plans on Friday morning to check with their airline.

Beyond early morning flight disruptions, it wasn’t known early Friday how widespread the effects of the internet outage were in Minnesota and across the U.S.

WCCO-TV in the Twin Cities reported that the outage delayed the broadcast of its morning news show.

Websites for some Minnesota state agencies, including the Department of Public Safety, were down as of 6:30 a.m., though it was not immediately clear whether that was linked to the larger outage.

Microsoft, which hosts cloud services with businesses and governments, said it was grappling with service outages.

Microsoft issued a statement saying the problem was being investigated while cautioning that users "may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services."

Britty Daniels found herself stuck in an airport in Burlington, Vermont, on Friday morning and said she'd received little information about the outage.

"Just that there's a nationwide outage of Microsoft and it has something to do with their security system," she said, noting that there was no word on when the problem might be resolved.

"We're just here waiting in the airport with three small kids hoping to get home," Daniels told NPR.

While the exact series of events remains unclear, the issue reverberated widely.

Airports in Japan and Australia, 911 phone lines in Alaska, and the London Stock Exchange and hospitals in England were all dealing with major disruptions.

Entire companies are reporting being offline, and merchants can’t process payments in some cities.

News agencies, like Sky News in Australia, also reported being completely knocked offline.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Copyright 2024, NPR

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