new york
CNN
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A global software failure on Friday took down many computer systems across the business, health, technology and government sectors within 12 hours.
How did the crash unfold? Which systems have recovered and which are still affected? We’ll break it down for you. (All times are Eastern Time)
911 centers and transportation services were disrupted from late Thursday night into the early Friday morning.
911 services were down in several states, including Alaska and Arizona, from Thursday night into Friday, and some hospitals also began experiencing technical issues overnight, according to nurses on duty.
Between 2 and 3 a.m., the FAA announced the suspension of all Delta and American Airlines flights. Minutes later, the FAA announced that United and Allegiant Air flights were also suspended, regardless of destination.
Spirit Airlines said its flight reservation system was also affected by the outage.
A few hours later, between 5 and 6 a.m., public transportation in the Northeast began reporting that it was affected. Public transportation in Washington, DC, including trains and buses, began experiencing delays, according to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
The New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the largest transit system in North America, said its customer information system was temporarily offline but that train and bus services were not affected.
At 5:30 a.m., US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike told customers it was “aware of reports of crashes” of its software on Microsoft Windows operating systems, according to a company advisory seen by CNN. CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software, used by many Fortune 500 companies, detects and blocks hacking threats.
Between 6 and 7 a.m., the White House investigates and global banks report problems.
Between 6am and 7am: A White House National Security Council spokesperson told CNN that the administration is “aware of the incident and is investigating the matter and its impact.” A White House source familiar with the matter told CNN that there are no indications of malicious activity at this time, but that the administration is still investigating.
Banks around the world have begun reporting disruptions, including Australia’s Commonwealth Bank, South Africa’s Capitec Bank and Bank of Israel. Australian financial institutions ANZ and Westpac were also affected, according to Downdetector, a website that tracks cyber outages. Downdetector also found issues with New Zealand’s ASB Bank.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency in response to an outage that affected the Department of Emergency Communications’ computer-aided dispatch system, which is used to respond to emergency calls. The department began taking calls manually, according to the mayor’s office.
Meanwhile, United Airlines said it would resume “selected flights.”
Some flights will resume between 8am and 9am, but the airport is preparing for a busy day.
Delta Air Lines will resume some flight departures and issue travel waivers for affected customers.
A spokesman for Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport said the system is up and running and that the airport is adding customer service representatives to address the challenges it is facing.
A spokesman urged passengers to “please be patient – we are trying to be tolerant and patient with all our passengers and ask you to do the same.”
Late Friday morning, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, an American Airlines hub, advised passengers not to travel to the airport “unless they confirm their flight information with their airline.” Officials at Miami International Airport, another American Airlines hub, similarly warned travelers that U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations were affected nationwide, “so international arriving passengers are currently being processed manually and at a slower pace.”
From 9 a.m. to noon, federal agencies will be involved and President Biden will be briefed.
Shortly before 9 a.m., Alaska State Troopers and Phoenix Police in Arizona announced that 911 center service was back up and running after both emergency and non-emergency call centers were affected.
Portland’s computer-aided dispatch system will also be back online at 9 a.m.
“There was no impact to the area’s 911 capabilities,” the mayor’s office said in a news release. “The Department of Public Safety’s vital life-saving services, including police and fire and rescue services, continue.”
The Federal Communications Commission said in a statement that after becoming aware of “reports of outages causing disruptions to services, including 911,” it was working with federal agencies to provide assistance and determine the scope of the outage.
A White House official said President Joe Biden has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and that his team has been in contact with CrowdStrike and affected groups. The official said the president’s team is also working with government agencies to “receive sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and stand by to provide assistance as needed.”
By this time, more and more federal agencies were beginning to get involved and report service outages. In a statement about X, the US Department of Homeland Security said it was “working with CrowdStrike, Microsoft, and our federal, state, local, and critical infrastructure partners to fully assess and address the system outage.”
The Social Security Administration has warned citizens that they can expect “long wait times at the national 800 number,” which the agency ordered people to shut down.
In an internal memo seen by CNN, the US Department of Justice said it was feeling the effects of the technology outage and was working on a workaround but had no “estimated timeline for restoration.”
Mail delivery companies UPS and FedEx also told CNN they were affected by the outage, with UPS saying flights were running and drivers were on the ground, but that there might be some delays in service.
Shortly after 11 a.m., CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz wrote in a post on X that the company “understands the seriousness of the situation and deeply apologizes for any inconvenience and trouble caused,” adding that the incident was not a cyberattack and that customer data remained protected.
“The issue has been identified and a fix is being deployed,” he said. “There was an issue with the Falcon content update on Windows hosts.”
Late morning to early afternoon: Doctor and DMV appointments canceled
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation said some motor vehicle registration operations were affected. Other states, including Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee, have also reported impacts to driving services.
Around the same time, several health care and hospital systems across the country announced they were affected by the global outage, including the Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital System in Massachusetts, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Pennsylvania, Northwell Health in New York and Emory Healthcare in Atlanta.
Some hospitals have reported delays in services, while others have canceled some non-urgent surgeries and appointments. Several cancer centers, including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, have said they are suspending certain procedures and appointments.
In British Columbia, the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) has announced that the province’s health-care system has been affected and is working to implement contingency plans to ensure patient care.
At around 4 p.m., the New York Blood Center, which supplies blood to about 200 hospitals in the northeastern U.S., said it had launched an emergency operation to distribute the blood.
“Yesterday and today, the test tubes could not be loaded onto the plane and had to be transported by car,” Andrea Cefarelli, senior vice president of the New York Blood Center, told CNN in a call. “This means delays of 12 to 24 hours for test results.”
American Blood Centers, which relies on delivery companies like FedEx, said it’s experiencing delays in reporting test results. Vice President Jenny Fissenec said the delays aren’t likely to cause a blood shortage unless the problems persist, as blood use may be declining as hospitals cancel elective surgeries.
Blood Assurance, which supplies blood to hospitals in many southeastern states, including Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, said at least 20 planned shipments of platelets have been postponed because of flight delays and cancellations caused by the outage.
“We ask local residents to help by donating blood,” Blood Assurance said in an email to CNN. “We have an incredible community of donors who always show up in our time of need.”
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz took to social media again to promise “full transparency” to customers about how the global IT outage linked to the company’s software came about.
CrowdStrike said in a statement on its website that it would take steps “to ensure this never happens again.”