Businesses including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets have been taken offline after blue screen of death error screens were seen on Windows workstations across the globe.
Major US air carriers including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded all flights early on Friday over a communication issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA said in a notice to airlines.“All flights regardless of destination” were grounded due to the “communication issues.”
Equities sank Friday as hopes for US interest rate cuts were offset by uncertainty over the US presidential election and worries about China’s economy, while technical disruptions delayed London’s opening as a widespread outage hit global computer systems.
Investors were already on edge after a report said the White House was considering a crackdown on firms supplying chip technology to Beijing, and following Donald Trump’s call for Taiwan to pay Washington for help defending itself against China.
Markets have been enjoying a healthy run-up as Federal Reserve officials have lined up in recent days to suggest they are ready to begin reducing rates.
Data Thursday provided fresh room for the central bank to act, with initial jobless claims rising more than expected last week.
Shares in Hong Kong fell owing to a lack of policy detail, though Shanghai eked out a gain. There were also losses in Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Mumbai, Bangkok, Taipei, Wellington and Jakarta.
Paris and Frankfurt fell while London’s FTSE 100 retreated after opening late having been hit by technical issues, with services around the world including airports, rail operators, banks, media and shops also affected.
The disruption caused major US airlines to ground all flights over a “communication issue”, the Federal Aviation Authority said.
Tech titan Microsoft said it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service issues.
It was not clear if those were linked to the global outages.
The announcement came as Australia reported a large-scale outage of IT systems, with the country’s national broadcaster, its largest international airport and a major telecommunications company reporting issues.
The major outage grounded flights in the United States, derailing television broadcasts in the UK and impacting telecommunications in Australia.
Major US air carriers including Delta, United and American Airlines grounded all flights on Friday over a communication issue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Flights were suspended at Berlin Brandenburg airport in Germany due to a “technical problem”, a spokeswoman said.
All airports in Spain were experiencing “disruptions” from an IT outage that hit several companies worldwide on Friday, the airport operator Aena said.
Hong Kong’s airport also said some airlines had been affected, with its authority issuing a statement in which it linked the disruption to a Microsoft outage.
The UK’s biggest rail operator meanwhile warned of possible train cancellations due to IT issues, while photos posted online showed large queues forming at Sydney Airport in Australia.
“Flights are currently arriving and departing however there may be some delays throughout the evening,” a Sydney Airport spokesman said.
“We have activated our contingency plans with our airline partners and deployed additional staff to our terminals to assist passengers.”
Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator said the “large-scale technical outage” was caused by an issue with a “third-party software platform”, adding there was no information as yet to suggest hacker involvement.
Sky News reported that the glitch had ended its morning news broadcasts, while Australian broadcaster ABC similarly reported a major “outage”.
Some self-checkout terminals at one of Australia’s largest supermarket chains were rendered useless, displaying blue error messages.
New Zealand media said banks and computer systems inside the country’s parliament were reporting issues.
Australian telecommunications firm Telstra suggested the outages were caused by “global issues” plaguing software provided by Microsoft and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
Microsoft said in a statement it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service issues.
It was not clear if those were linked to the global outages.
“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said in a post on social media platform X.
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