Microsoft and Cloudstrike take action as global outages affect airlines and cellular networks

What you need to know

• Microsoft services across networking and cloud computing are reporting outages, affecting airlines, 911 operators, and more across the United States.
• Engineers of security software Cloudstrike have issued a statement acknowledging the potential issue and are working on a fix.
• Microsoft is also taking actions to repair its Azure servers and remedy the problem for global Windows users.

It’s not a great Friday for Microsoft, as the dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death’ (BSOD) error screen is causing worldwide outages across several media outlets, airlines, banks, and even 911 emergency operators. Popular service issue tracker ‘Downdetector’ reports server problems across all major Microsoft services, including its Azure servers, subsequently affecting cellular networks like Verizon.

Commercial flights are grounded at a “global ground stop” as information screens fail to show flight information across airports worldwide, and the United Kingdom’s Sky News TV channel is currently offline. Microsoft claims it is taking “mitigation actions” in comments to the AFP news agency, as investigations into its servers started after the first signs of problems at 6 PM ET on Thursday.

Many Windows devices suffering from blue-screened errors seemingly rely on the security software Crowdstrike, and its engineers are aware of an issue relating to its ‘Falcon Sensor.’ Specifics of what caused the BSOD problems are currently unknown.