Today, the world has been hit by the ultimate IT issue affecting services globally and causing chaos in businesses, what is the cause and how will it be fixed?
IT services have been affected worldwide by CrowdStrike and Microsoft outages which began 6pm Eastern time and 11pm UK time last night.
The cybersecurity software, CrowdStrike whose services work to stop internet breaches and hacks for the world's largest corporations is working to resolve this IT problem.
This is being called the largest IT outage in history.
Are we unable to function without the use of technology?
Who has been affected?
Businesses, airlines, train services, retail networks and more have all been affected by this outage with Sky News announcing early that they were unable to do their Morning broadcast.
Airports and train lines
Boarding scanners at airports and check in systems are down halting flighting at Edinburgh airport, India, Stanstead, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and more facing difficulties. Hong Kong airport has reported that check-in is being conducted manually and activated emergency procedures to get flights off the ground.
Train services are down across the world as UK services report they are unable to access driver diagrams in certain locations leading to short notice cancellations. Their live customer information platforms are also down leaving commuters without notice.
Emergency services
Emergency 911 lines went down in some US states such as Alaska. They have issued out alternative numbers to ring if needed.
The Metropolitan Police has reported not being affected by the IT issues as well as the London Fire Brigade being up and running as normal.
Booking systems with the NHS in the UK denying access to patients to log on and get an appointment.
Business
The London Stock exchange has been affected by the third party technical issue preventing them from publishing news. They are working to restore services.
The problem was first noticed on the Asian market as they were unable to publish news on their platform. As well as no prices being available on the platforms.
Stores are suffering as their pay systems are down as a blue screen appears in mass.
Commonwealth Bank confirmed Pay ID payments are also down for some customers.
How is the situation being handled?
Microsoft and CrowdStrike are investigating the issue to ensure everything is back up and running as soon as possible. Microsoft are taking mitigation action.
Crowd strike have reassured us that this was not the result of a cyber attack and services are safe. They have also identified an issue with the 'content deployment' which could be a catalyst for the outage, they are deploying a fix to resolve the problems.
More than 8 million computer worldwide causing chaos in multiple industries and networks grounding to a halt. The repairs are expected to continue with the NHS systems struggling to keep up with GP booking after the disruption.
The IT outage has been resolved as the world now resumes to normal catching up from the missed and disrupted services.