Microsoft Crowdstrike IT outage today live: CEO ‘deeply sorry’ as global chaos at airlines and hospitals could last for days

You can read our full report on the outages here.

Companies have reported payroll outages after software was affected by a global IT outage.

The IT outage resulted in queues and delays at airports, disruption to GP services and payment failures in some stores.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is “actively working” to fix a “defect” in an update for Microsoft Windows users that caused the outage.

Workers who receive weekly paychecks could also be affected by the shutdown, after companies said their payroll software was also affected.

Melanie Pizzey, CEO and founder of the Global Payroll Association, said: “We have already been contacted by several customers today who were unable to access their payroll software due to Microsoft’s outage, and others who were urged to log out immediately.

“Depending on the duration of this outage, it could have very serious implications for businesses across the country, especially those that process payroll on a weekly basis.

“In addition, we may see a backlog in payroll processing towards the end of next month, which could delay employees receiving their monthly salary.

“At best, it will require payroll managers to work overtime to fix the problem, but the good news is that it does not appear to be a cyberattack.”

Some banking services were also affected, with Barclays bank reporting that its digital investment platform was also experiencing outages.

A spokesperson for the bank said: “All Barclays services are operating as normal at this time, except for our Smart Investor digital investment platform, where customers are currently unable to manage their accounts on the app, in Online Banking or over the phone.”

Other payment services, banks and financial institutions tried to assure customers that their systems were working without interruption.

Link, which runs the UK’s ATM network, said its network was “operating normally but there is heightened monitoring in place as a precaution”.

George Kurtz, CEO and chairman of CrowdStrike, appeared on the Today show in the US.

He apologizes to those affected by the bug. (His initial statement, posted on X/Twitter and found below, did not include an apology.)

“We deeply regret the impact we have caused to customers, travelers and anyone else affected by this,” he says at the beginning of the interview.

He makes it clear that there was no cyber attack and that it was in fact a mistake.

Customers are now rebooting their systems and they are becoming operational, he says. The company is working with people whose systems are not recovering automatically.

“We won’t give up until all customers are back to the way they were before,” he says.

“It’s been a long night,” he says, coughing in response to a question about why there aren’t more layoffs to ensure a single insect doesn’t cause such devastation.

The NHS says it is receiving calls from blood donors who are worried about whether they will still be able to donate as usual. It is seeking to reassure donors that they should still turn up and book appointments as usual – and is seeking to remind the UK that it still has an urgent need for people with O negative blood.

“NHS Blood and Transplant is urging donors to book and attend appointments to donate blood to increase the resilience of the NHS at this time,” an NHS Blood and Transplant spokesperson said. “There is still a particularly urgent need for O negative blood.

“Blood donation systems are unaffected and we currently have a high number of appointments available at our donation centres in major cities including London, Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham. Blood is needed 24/7, 365 days a year, so we urgently need people to continue filling appointments in the coming days, weeks and months.”

Before this week, CrowdStrike was known mostly for fixing problems. Or perhaps for sponsoring the “halo” that protects Lewis Hamilton in the event of an accident with his Formula 1 car.

Now, he will forever be associated with what may be the “biggest IT outage in history.”

Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt says it’s “not too early to say: This will be the biggest IT outage in history.”

“This is basically what we all worried about with Y2K, except this time it actually happened,” he wrote.

(That’s a reference to the Y2K problem, which you can read about here; everyone was worried about it, but very few actually broke. It’s since become an example of a widely feared problem that never showed up, though security experts note that’s because people worked hard to prevent it, not because it was never really a problem.)

The error messages that Windows users are seeing around the world aren’t just on their desks. You can see them everywhere — like in airports.

In a statement to The IndependentThe airline said: “A third-party software outage has impacted computer systems worldwide, including at United.

“We are resuming some flights, but we expect schedule disruptions to continue throughout Friday. We have issued a waiver to make it easier for customers to change their travel plans via United.com or the United app.”

The Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust said on Friday morning that radiotherapy treatments at its hospitals had been impacted by the disruption. They declared a critical incident, saying they are “currently unable to provide our scheduled radiotherapy treatments”.

A spokesperson added: “This issue has affected Varian, the IT system we use to deliver radiotherapy treatments. We have contacted our patients who were due to have radiotherapy this morning to reschedule appointments while we work to fix these issues.”

British Airways says “some” flights may be disrupted and advises people to check the status of their flights.

“Due to the widely reported global Microsoft IT outage, some of our flights may be disrupted today. Our teams are working hard to manage the impact of this issue as quickly as possible.

“Please visit our flight status page for the most up-to-date information about your flight. We apologize for any potential impact on your travel plans.

“If you have a connecting flight as part of the same ticket and there is a chance that you will miss your connection, we will automatically rebook your outbound trip. Please check Manage My Booking.”

“Our call centres are also experiencing challenges. We have introduced greater flexibility on ba.com for customers travelling on our short-haul network today. This flexibility will allow you to make changes to your booking via Manage My Booking free of charge.

“Thank you for your patience and understanding.”