All flights with major airlines such as Delta, United, and American were temporarily grounded Friday morning because of a cyber outage.
As of around 7:00 am Friday morning, over 1,300 flights had been canceled and 17,000 flights had been delayed, according to FlightAware.
The ground stop reportedly impacted all flights, regardless of destination.
“All Delta flights are paused as we work through a vendor technology issue,” Delta Airlines said in a statement, according to CBS News. “Any customers whose flights are impacted will be notified by Delta via the Fly Delta app and text message. Customers should use the Fly Delta app for updates.”
American Airlines for its part reportedly released a statement just after 5:00 am announcing that the halt was over.
“Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American,” the statement reads. “As of 5 a.m., we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines. Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved. Monitor https://t.co/smgdqJN3td
for updates.— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) July 19, 2024
The cyber outage came from a CrowdStrike glitch and reportedly started as early as Thursday.
“The issue was caused by a technical problem that global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it had identified in its systems and was working to resolve,” according to CBS News.
“Microsoft 365 said on social media that it was ‘investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services’ and that things were improving as the company worked to ‘reroute the affected traffic to healthy infrastructure,'” CBS News noted.
When CBS News contacted CrowdStrike’s technical support team on Friday, they were hit with a recorded message saying that the company was aware of what was happening.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz later posted a message to social media revealing the problem had been identified and resolved.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” he said. “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.”
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. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
The statement prompted some outrage.
Look:
Where’s the apology to users, George?
— Will Guyatt (@willguyatt) July 19, 2024
Missing we screwed up and we are sorry
— David Hajek (@hajekd) July 19, 2024
“We accept our mistake and apologise for the inconvenience caused” ????
— Aditya Kumar Saroj (@AdiKumarSaroj) July 19, 2024
Bro just stopped the entire world and probably caused millions in damages and doesn’t even apologize
— Ameer (@SynthPotato) July 19, 2024
Translation from corporate-speak:
“CrowdStrike broke your business today but please remember YOU are the problem – not us. We won’t provide any helpful information here. Remember: You should actually be apologizing to us for using computers in your business. Awwwwwww boo hoo -…
— Chris Bakke (@ChrisJBakke) July 19, 2024
The bad news is that some — not all — of the problems caused by this glitch may take extra time to fix, according to CyberArk Chief Information Officer Omer Grossman.
According to CBS News, he said the issue had to do with something called Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) products that evidently run on individual client computers.
“It turns out that because the endpoints have crashed – the Blue Screen of Death – they cannot be updated remotely and the problem must be solved manually, endpoint by endpoint. This is expected to be a process that will take days,” he said.
Foreign airports and services have also been affected by the glitch.
“In India, at the country’s primary airport in Delhi, everything was being done manually,” according to CBS News. “No electric check-in terminals were functioning and gate information was being updated by hand on a whiteboard.”
“Hospitals in Germany said they were cancelling elective surgeries Friday and doctors in the U.K. said they were having issues accessing their online booking system. Pharmacists in the U.K. said there were disruptions with medicine deliveries and accessing prescriptions.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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