Faulty software update causes havoc worldwide for airlines, hospitals and governments

NEW YORK — A faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide on Friday, grounding flights, knocking media outlets offline, and disrupting hospitals, small businesses and government offices. The breadth of the outages highlighted the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a few providers for key computing services.

The trouble with the update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected customers running Microsoft Windows. It was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.

Businesses and governments worldwide experienced hours-long disruptions — their computer monitors glowing blue with error messages — and scrambled to deal with the fallout.

Thousands of flights were canceled and tens of thousands were delayed, leading to long lines at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Airlines lost access to check-in and booking services in the heart of the summer travel season.

Several local TV stations in the U.S. were prevented from airing the news early Friday, and some state and local governments reported problems at courts, motor vehicles departments, unemployment agencies, emergency call centers and other offices.

[International tech outage ripples into Alaska’s 911, airport, hospital and court systems]

Affected hospitals had problems with appointment systems, forcing them to suspend patient visits and cancel some surgeries.

Alison Baulos said her 73-year-old father’s emergency heart surgery in Paducah, Kentucky was canceled Friday morning because of the tech outage, leaving her family scared and worried.

“So if anything happens, it would be as a result of not having the surgery this morning,” Baulos said in an interview. She said her father was waiting at Baptist Hospital to find out what will happen next. A phone message left with the hospital was not immediately returned.

Elsewhere, people experienced minor inconveniences, including trouble ordering ahead at Starbucks, causing long lines to form at some of the coffee chain’s stores.

A disturbing reminder of vulnerability

Cyber expert James Bore said real harm would be caused. “All of these systems are running the same software,” Bore said. “We’ve made all of these tools so widespread that when things inevitably go wrong — and they will, as we’ve seen — they go wrong at a huge scale.”

The head of Germany’s IT security agency, Claudia Plattner, said “we can’t expect a very quick solution.” A forecast for when exactly all systems will be up and running is difficult, but “it won’t be hours,” she added.

CrowdStrike said in a recording on its customer service line that the problem was related to “the Falcon sensor,” referring to one of its products used to block online attacks. The company says it has 29,000 customers.

In an interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized, saying the company was “deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies.”

“We know what the issue is” and are working to remediate it, Kurtz said.

Shares of the company, which is based in Austin, Texas, fell nearly 10% on Friday. Microsoft’s stock price fell more than 3%.

Though the outage’s impact could be felt far and wide, the forecasting firm Capital Economics said it was likely to have little impact on the world economy.

Cybersecurity experts said those affected by the outage also needed to be wary of bad actors reaching out claiming they can help. “Attackers will definitely prey on organizations as a result of this,” said Gartner analyst Eric Grenier.

Air travel delayed everywhere

Most airlines attributed the problems to their booking systems. Thousands of flights were affected in the U.S. alone, though by late morning on the East Coast airlines said they were beginning to mitigate problems and resume some service.

At Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Sarah Schafer was delayed getting to her cousin’s 50th birthday party in Florida. She had been waiting for almost three hours with no indication of when her flight would be rebooked.

“I seem calm,” said Schafer, who was using a cane because of ankle injury. “But my angry side might come out.”

Airlines and railways in the U.K. experienced long wait times. And airports across Europe suspended landings or halted takeoffs for several hours due to difficulties in checking in passengers.

Saskia Oettinghaus, a member of the German Olympic diving team, was among those stuck at the Berlin Airport.

“We are on our way to Paris for the Olympic Games and now we are at a standstill here for the time being,” Oettinghaus said.

Other athletes and spectators traveling to Paris were delayed, as were their uniforms and accreditations, but Games organizers said disruptions were limited and didn’t affect ticketing or the torch relay.

Broadcasters go dark, surgeries delayed, ‘blue screens of death’

In Australia, national news outlets — including public broadcaster ABC and Sky News Australia — were unable to broadcast on their TV and radio channels for hours. Some news anchors went on air online from dark offices, in front of computers showing blue error screens. Internet and phone providers were also affected.

In the U.S., KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, aired Scripps News instead of local news until about 5:35 a.m., the stations said on its website. IT teams and engineers worked through the night to resolve the glitch, the station said. Other local stations owned by Scripps reported similar problems, though Scripps spokesman Michael Perry said in an email early Friday that 90% of stations were able to air local news.

Hospitals in different countries also reported problems.

Britain’s National Health Service said the outage caused problems at most doctors’ offices because appointment and patient-record systems were affected.

At Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, all scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits were canceled Friday because of the outage, according to a spokesperson.

Some international shipping was disrupted, too.

A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland said it was battling problems. And at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, marine terminals were affected, although the outage didn’t cause significant disruptions.

“Basically, it’s been minimal impact overnight and we’re going to have to wait and see how these terminals come up over the next several hours,” said Phillip Sanfield, a spokesperson for the Port of Los Angeles.

___

Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok, McHugh from Frankfurt, and Graham-McLay from Wellington, New Zealand. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed.