Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm with thousands of customers globally, admitted on Friday that a defective software update had caused the major IT outage that is bringing airports, banks, hospitals, media outlets, and businesses to a halt worldwide.

Reports of outages began streaming in from around the globe early on Friday, with broadcaster Sky News in the UK forced off the air for several hours.

Travellers faced widespread disruption with airlines cancelling flights and airports struggling to cope with system failures and delays.

The outage has also impacted global customers of Microsoft's Azure and Office365 services, which first reported being hit about 18.00 ET on Thursday, or midnight CET on Friday.

In a post on X, the Big Tech giant said it was "investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services".

"We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue to mitigate the issue," it added.

Airlines such as Qantas in Australia and at least two low-cost carriers in the US - Frontier and Sun Country Airlines - have been forced to ground flights.

In Europe, users of Ryanair's app and website also complained about not being able to check in for their flights on Friday morning, with a surge of reports noted on the outage tracking website Downdetector.com.

In a post on X, the airline confirmed it was "experiencing disruption" due to a "globe 3rd party IT outage".

Carriers such as KLM have also informed customers to expect delays or cancelled flights as handling services was "impossible," according to the Dutch airline.

Several European airports have reported IT issues, including Berlin Brandenberg Airport which has told customers to expect delays at check-in. At Edinburgh Airport in the UK, a computer error caused departure boards to freeze.

Amsterdam Schiphol has also reported issues with flights affected, as did airports in New Zealand, Japan, and India.

Switzerland's largest airport, Zurich is currently stopping aircraft from landing.

In the UK, supermarkets like Aldi, Morrison's, and Waitrose reported experiencing issues accepting card payments.

Hospitals, pharmacies, and doctors' surgeries in the UK have also been hit, reporting difficulties retrieving medical records, staff rosters and more, with reports of two German hospitals in Luebeck and Kiel also cancelling non-urgent surgeries.

What's caused the global outage?

In a statement on Friday, George Kurtz, CEO of cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, confirmed that a "defect" in a content update for Windows is behind the outage.

"Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," Kurtz said.

"Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.

"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed".

Crowdstrike has advised customers to refer to its support portal for updates, and for organisations to continue communicating with Crowdstrike representatives "through official channels".

"Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers," Kurtz concluded.

Initial reports on Friday speculated that an antivirus software update at global security firm that had gone awry was to blame for the outage.

Devices, such as computers and phones, became "bricked," meaning that they're not able to function as they should due to corrupted software.

On Reddit, community users of the Crowdstrike subreddit (r/crowdstrike) have shared what is reported to be an advisory from the company issued to customers only that suggests the cause is its Falcon Sensor.

In the communiqué, the company says it is aware that customers are experiencing repeated BSODs (Blue Screen of Death) and are unable to reboot their devices.

"CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor. Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor," it states.

Euronews Next has contacted Crowdstrike directly to confirm if this is the "defect" referred to in their CEO's statement.

Regarding Friday's outage, Lauren Wills-Dixon, a data privacy expert at UK-based law firm Gordons, told Euronews Next: "We’ll likely find out more as the hours progress, but this shows just how reliant we are on certain tech, how much trust organisations put in them and their security practices, and also the chaos that downtime can cause".

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