A global tech outage has impacted companies across multiple industries, including airports, trains, banks and TV broadcasters.
The IT issues have also affected businesses in Ireland and other countries such as the UK, the US, Australia and several European countries.
The outages are linked to an issue at global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike.
Ireland's National Cyber Security Centre said it was aware of the global incident concerning the latest software update from CrowdStrike.
It said all essential services in Ireland are continuing to operate normally. Similarly, Government IT systems in the Republic are not currently affected.
According to an alert sent by Crowdstrike to its clients, the company’s “Falcon Sensor” software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the “blue screen of death”.
The alert, which was sent at 5.30am on Friday, also shared a manual workaround to rectify the issue.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, CrowdStrike president George Kurtz said the problem was caused by a “defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts”.
He said: “This is not a security incident or cyber attack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.
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
“We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.
“Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”
Mr Kurtz said the issue was not affecting Mac or Linux software.
Travel disruption
The outages have rippled far and wide.
The travel industry was among the hardest hit with airports around the world, including Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin, London Gatwick, Edinburgh and several Spanish airports reporting problems with their systems and delays.
Transport for Ireland apologised for disruption to its online services, with the Leap Card app and TFI Live app impacted by the outage. It said onboard fare payment systems are operating as normal.
The aviation sector is hit particularly hard due to its sensitivity to timings. Airlines rely on a closely coordinated schedule often run by air traffic control. Just one delay of a few minutes can throw off a flight schedule for take-offs and landings for an airport and airline for the rest of the day.
Passenger advice:
Due to a global IT issue, Ryanair is experiencing challenges with its check-in processes this morning and have requested that their passengers arrive at the airport 3 hours prior to their flight.
The @DublinAirport team is on hand to assist Ryanair and… https://t.co/N6DDFRb1dU pic.twitter.com/Qj6dOAyi6I— Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) July 19, 2024
Ryanair said its flights are being disrupted by the outage. The airline said in a statement: “We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control.
“We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”
The IT outage is affecting Belfast International Airport, where whiteboards are being used to provide flight information, as the electronic screens are not functioning, according to Sky News correspondent Stephen Murphy.
Whiteboards being used at @belfastairport as all the screens are blue. Passenger Martin McElroy took this, and told us that it's like “the dark ages, but to be fair they’re making it work, which you have to give them credit for.” #outage pic.twitter.com/FfSmEHCvuO
— Stephen Murphy (@SMurphyTV) July 19, 2024
In the Netherlands, Schiphol airport said it was affected and advised travellers flying today to contact their airlines.
London Stansted Airport said that some airline check-in services are being done manually as a result of the IT outage, but “flights are still operating as normal”.
Several US carriers including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Airlines issued ground stops for all their flights early on Friday due to communication problems, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration.
Top Dutch airline KLM said it could not handle flights on Friday and that it suspended most of its operations. Air France, KLM's parent company, said that its operations were disrupted.
Turkish Airlines is experiencing problems with ticketing, check-in, and booking due to a global technical issue in its information systems, it said in a post on X.
"We expect longer waiting times and some flight cancellations. Not all airports in Europe were impacted as the issue is linked with a specific OS, Microsoft Azure," said Agata Lyznik, a spokesperson for airports group ACI Europe.
Some airlines said they were already back online, with Spanish carrier Iberia saying it had managed to avoid flight cancellations.
"From 9.25am onwards the electronic check-in counters and online check-ins were reactivated. There have been some delays," a spokesperson said.
Sky News, one of Britain's major television news channels, was off-air on Friday, while various businesses and other services were also impacted by a global tech outage.
"Sky News have not been able to broadcast live TV this morning, currently telling viewers that we apologise for the interruption," the broadcaster's executive chairman David Rhodes said on X.
A health booking system used by doctors in England is also offline, medical officials said on X on Friday.
Australia's largest bank, Commonwealth Bank said some customers had been unable to transfer money due to the service outage. National airline Qantas and Sydney airport said planes were delayed but still flying.
In the Victoria region, state police said some internal systems had been hit by the outage but emergency services were operating normally. The output of a number of media companies was also disrupted.
A spokesperson for New Zealand's parliament said its computer systems had also been affected.
State broadcaster ABC said it was experiencing a "major network outage", without giving a reason.
Several stock exchanges have also reported some impacts. One London-based trader said several multilateral trading facilities were being affected by the outage, leaving some clients unable to trade. "We are having the mother of all global market outages," the trader added.
