First responders, hospitals, flights: Local effects of global technology disruption

An internet outage affecting Microsoft is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies across the world, with problems continuing hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Airlines, retail outlets, banks, railway companies and hospitals in several parts of the world were affected in what appeared to be an unprecedented internet disruption.

Airlines were getting back in business by midday but the early delays left things backed up.

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‘Not a cyberattack’

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, posted a message on X (formerly Twitter) at 5:45 a.m., saying “a fix has been deployed.”

The concern spread Friday morning to global stock markets.

In the United States, Crowdstrike and Microsoft were both down before the stock exchange opened in New York, which is set for 9:30 a.m.

Crowdstrike was reportedly down 18%.

The Malaysian Stock Exchange experienced disruptions, and the London Stock Exchange experienced some disruptions in its news service but said it was open as normal.

Borsa Italiana, the company that manages Milan’s stock exchange, said the “correct disclosure of the index FTSE MIB has been restored.” Earlier Friday, the company had said that the index had not been updated, without providing additional information.

First responders

Across the U.S., 911 services were reportedly disrupted.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said it had a minor disruption in non-emergency calls but that the lines were back and working by 4:30 a.m.

In Clay County, residents were experiencing intermittent 911 outages, but the county did not say if that was related to the global technology issues.

By 7:10 a.m., a spokeswoman said that technicians had restored services to all affected public safety agencies in Clay County and that the cause of the outage was under investigation.

St. Johns County Fire and Rescue dispatchers had to send out calls manually, according to Public Information Officer Chris Naff.

Naff said this was an issue that rarely happens.

“Hardly ever, especially with our backup systems. Sometimes our 911 centers go down, but we have these backup systems in place just in case,” Naff said.

Hospitals

Baptist Health released a statement on Friday, saying that some of its computer systems were impacted by the corrupted software update.

“Multiple fixes are in process and we remain operational. All of our emergency centers are open and patients should arrive for their scheduled appointments or procedures unless contacted to reschedule,” the statement said.

Kevin Punsky with the Mayo Clinic told New4JAX that its systems and data weren’t affected by the outage.

Ascension St. Vincent’s also released a statement, stating that it does not use CrowdStrike for its systems but has some third-party companies that work with the cybersecurity business.

“For those third-party systems that have been impacted, we are utilizing our normal downtime procedures as appropriate until they are brought back online. We have been told that CrowdStrike has corrected errors with the Microsoft update, and we are hopeful the issue will be resolved quickly.”

Utilities

JEA released a statement Friday saying that it does not use CrowdStrike.

“At this point, all of our electric and water systems look operational. We have established a major system review to ensure the health and continuity of services for our customers,” the statement said.

City of Jacksonville

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan sent a statement Friday saying the outage did not impact the city. However, some of its partners may be experiencing some disruptions.

“The CrowdStrike outage is not impacting the City of Jacksonville. Our technology infrastructure is fully online, and constituent services remain unaffected. The Duval County Emergency Preparedness Division is coordinating with our local partners to make sure there are not any unmet needs. A handful of partners are experiencing minor service disruptions, and those services are slowly being restored. We will continue to monitor the situation and provide any updates to the public as needed,” Deegan wrote.

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