American cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike says the IT outage that has affected businesses and services across the globe is not a cyberattack.
Also read: Capitec services disrupted while Microsoft users are hit with outage
Rather, the company says a software issue is to blame. ‘CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,’ Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said in a statement.
‘Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, [and] 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. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.’
‘Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.’
The IT outage affected Microsoft users and Capitec Bank customers on Friday morning, blocking access for various services on both online platforms.
Internationally, American Airlines, United and Delta asked the FAA for global ground stops on all flights.
As of 6:25am ET, at least 540 flights in America have been cancelled, ABC News reports.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reportedly told air traffic controllers to notify airborne pilots that airlines are experiencing communication issues.
According to BusinessTech, the outage stemmed from an anti-virus software update from Crowdstrike. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange issued a notice saying that the FTSE indices are not updating.
JSE indices not updating
“08:55 JSE INDICES – Clients are advised that we are aware the FTSE issue globally and are awaiting resolution. Clients are advised to trade with caution. We will provide a further update when received.”
— Simon Brown (@SimonPB) July 19, 2024
Capitec has since informed customers that it has restored all of its banking services. ‘Since early this morning, clients have faced difficulties accessing various banking services, including online banking, mobile app transactions, and card payments,’ it said.
‘Our tech team has worked quickly to resolve the problem — we are pleased to report that all our banking has now been fully restored.’ It added that clients’ bank accounts and personal details were not affected.
Some of the affected Microsoft services include:
- PowerBI: Service is in read-only mode
- Microsoft Fabric: Service is in read-only mode
- Microsoft Teams: Users may be unable to leverage Microsoft Teams functions, including presence, group chats, and user registration
- Microsoft 365 admin centre: Admins may be intermittently unable to access the Microsoft 365 admin centre, and any action may be delayed if accessible
The following services have been restored:
- Microsoft Defender
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
- Microsoft Defender Experts
- Microsoft Intune
- Microsoft OneNote
- OneDrive for Business
- SharePoint Online
- Windows 365
- Viva Engage
- Microsoft Purview
‘We’re continuing to see an improvement in service availability across multiple Microsoft 365 apps and services. We’re closely monitoring our telemetry data to ensure this upward trend continues as our mitigation actions continue to progress,’ the company said.
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Picture: Hannah Wei / Unsplash