Breaking: massive Windows outage plunges banks, airlines and more into chaos around the world

A massive global IT outage is today causing chaos at banks, airlines, TV broadcasters and more, after Windows workstations were hit by 'blue screen of death' error messages.

The first reports of issues came from Australia, but there are now confirmed problems across the US, UK and more. So far, we've seen major airlines included Delta and United stopping flights, TV networks like Sky News taken down in the UK, and widespread communications outages across Australia. 

Some reports, including from Australia's Telstra Group, suggest Crowdstrike (the cyber security firm) could be the root cause, but this hasn't yet been confirmed. We've contacted Crowdstrike and Microsoft for an official response.

This story is developing – we'll bring you all the latest details as we get them below.

What we know so far

• A huge global IT outage is causing chaos across banks, airports and more
• TV broadcasters, banks, health services and airlines have been affected
• Microsoft says it's "investigating an issue" affecting Microsoft 365 apps
• Reports suggest the cyber security firm Crowdstrike could the root of the issues

Good morning. Here's the latest on the global IT outage taking place right now.

Here's what Down Detector is currently showing in the US – with multiple companies impacted across all manner of industries including transport, banking, media and more. 

The situation in the UK is every bit as severe, with Microsoft – and Microsoft 365 – Visa, BT and more all seemingly impacted by the outage.

Microsoft's own Service Status page states that everything is running normally right now, which clearly isn't the case.

"We're all good! Everything is up and running."

However, earlier in the day Microsoft did report that users might not have been able to access Microsoft 365, its cloud-based app service. 

It seems the problem may stem from an update by the cybersecurity company Crowdstrike, which is causing Windows PCs to display the Blue Screen of Death, and to then be unable to reboot.

An email sent to TechRadar and other publishers by Tesserent cyber solutions company appears to confirm that the issue is with CrowdStrike.

It states: "CrowdStrike have deployed a new content update which resolves the previously erroneous update and subsequent host issues. As your devices receive this update you may need to reboot for the changes to take effect and for the blue screen (BSOD) issues to be resolved.

"If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File Changes, the following steps can be used to workaround this issue:

"Workaround Steps:

"1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment

"2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

"3. Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it. 

"4. Boot the host normally."

TechRadar has not yet been able to verify those steps independently. 

Microsoft's Twitter account (Sorry, X, whatever) is reporting that it's still investigating issues but that it is working on fixing them.

That previous post was some eight hours ago, but one hour ago it stated that "Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions. More details can be found within the admin center under MO821132 and http://status.cloud.microsoft"

Airlines appear to be one of the hardest hit areas in this outage. 

As well as the problems in the US, that have seen Delta and United ground flights, there are delays and problems everywhere from Japan – where the Narita airport outside Tokyo says JetStar, Jeju Air, Qantas, HK Express and Spring Japan all have issues with their systems – to India, where Delhi airport says some services have been temporarily impacted.

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