Microsoft IT outage live: Full recovery from CloudStrike outage ‘may take weeks’ as more flight delays occur

Until this week, CrowdStrike was known for finding the sources of problems, not causing them. The Austin, Texas-based company, with offices around the world, was best known for investigating major hacks, including the Sony Pictures hack and the Democratic National Committee intrusion that was blamed on Russian spies.

The company has built a huge business on this and other work. Its market capitalization was $80 billion (£62 billion) at the close of Nasdaq trading on Thursday, but its shares have since fallen 20 percent. The company reported revenue of $3 billion last year.

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by a team that included CEO George Kurtz, who has led the company through its recovery, and quickly attracted investor interest. The following year, the company launched with a $26 million investment round and has raised more since then.

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Technology researchers said the global IT outage was a “wake-up call” and “something that should never have happened”.

Dr Stephanie Hare told BBC Breakfast: “We believe this is an error in the process.”

“This should never have been allowed to happen because you test software updates and make sure everything is OK before you release them, especially if you’re releasing them worldwide.”

“So I think what we all had here was a really big wake-up call about how lacking in resilience our IT systems are.”

Dr Hare added: “Anyone working in IT, and particularly cybersecurity, has known this for years.

“We’re not investing enough. I hope this will encourage people to stop talking about generative AI and start focusing on cybersecurity again.”

Now thousands of users are unable to access results or purchase tickets ahead of Saturday night’s draw.

Customers began reporting issues accessing the National Lottery app and website from around 8pm on Friday, with complaints reaching more than 2,800 by Saturday morning, according to outage website Downdetector.

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Similar lessons should be drawn from the global IT outage as those from the pandemic, an academic has said.

Computer scientist Sir Nigel Shadbolt told the BBC’s Today programme: “These problems are too often left to the technical elite.”

“This affects everyone. We need to understand how it ripples through society and think about how we can all become more resilient.”

He added: “The general resilience of these systems is something very special. We depend on them and they generally perform at a very high level of quality.”

“But when something like a pandemic happens, we literally have to learn similar lessons, but what lessons do we learn?”

“What should we be thinking about as individuals? We should be thinking about the degree of resilience in our lives. Instead of relying on just one system, we should be thinking about having multiple systems.”

Manchester pharmacist Sohra told the BBC’s Today programme that backlogs at pharmacies were likely to continue after Friday’s IT outage.

She said: “What we are finding at the moment is that, obviously, there is some tension in some pharmacies with patients, but people have been really understanding and really patient with us.

“That backlog is going to continue because prescriptions are handwritten in the doctor’s office so obviously there are patients who aren’t able to get their prescriptions and there will be a bit of a backlog or they will end up coming to us.

“But I’m a little worried.”

A chartered security expert said there would be “lingering effects” from the IT outage which has caused chaos around the world.

James Boa told Sky News: “There will undoubtedly be long-lasting effects.”

“The biggest companies and those that provide the most important services are going to be doing everything in their power to solve the problem.

“But in other companies where you don’t have as many people typing on keyboards, it’s so important that each fix requires manual intervention on the computer, and we’re talking about millions of computers.

“If your company has one IT person and you have 2,000 employees, it’s not going to be an overnight fix.

“That can take weeks of work just to get people going and calling everyone together and sorting through their laptops.”

The vice president of the American College of Pharmacists said the global IT outage was causing “ongoing problems” for pharmacies.

Olivier Picard told BBC Breakfast: “I was in the pharmacy yesterday, in fact I’m in the pharmacy again this morning and the problem continues.”

Picard added: “On July 19th, I was unable to download new prescriptions, but those that I had downloaded to my computer prior to that date could be dispensed.”

“Most pharmacies are office-based or computer-based systems rather than online.

“That’s not all of it, but the majority of pharmacies are, so we’ve been able to continue working with what we have.

“I was unable to pick up any new prescriptions that were issued after the power went out.”

One GP said a global IT outage had “taken everything down” at her practice, and warned the disruption would cause “more problems later in the week”.

Asked about Friday’s power outage, Dr Fari Ahmad told BBC Breakfast: “Everything’s down. There are some business continuity measures that should help but some of them have been unavailable. I’ve heard that in some places all phone lines have gone dead.”

“People were having a hard time getting in. We were having a hard time telling people what was going on. And if people did come in, we had to examine them without access to their medical records. Doctors and clinics were running on pen and paper only.”

Dr Ahmad added: “We had people who were supposed to come in to get their test results and we couldn’t see them. We said, ‘Sorry, we can’t help you’. We were trying to deal with emergencies that day that really couldn’t wait.”

“The impact for us has been that a lot of work has been brought forward because we haven’t been able to carry out our normal operations.

“It’s all building up, so we’re going to see more issues later this week.”

Airports across the UK, including London Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester and Belfast International, are now advising passengers to check with their airlines for delays or cancellations before travelling over the weekend.

“Delays and cancellations will continue over the weekend,” a spokesman for London Gatwick Airport said. “We urge passengers to check with their airline for the latest updates.”

The American Pharmacists Association has warned that a global IT outage could cause disruption to patients collecting prescriptions this weekend.

Nick Kay, chairman of the National Pharmaceutical Association, which represents independent pharmacies in the UK, said: “Following a global IT outage, systems are now largely back online and many pharmacies have resumed delivering medicines.”

“However, yesterday’s power outage has caused a backlog and we expect service disruptions to continue this weekend until pharmacies are restored.

“We urge people to be patient when visiting their local pharmacy, as some pharmacies may be prioritising patients with urgent prescriptions from their GP.”