CrowdStrike says global IT disruptions not cyberattack

A global internet outage hit airlines and businesses worldwide Friday, with the CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike saying it is not a cyberattack.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, said in a post on the social platform X. “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted.”

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz added. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.”

According to flight-tracking website FlightAware, more than 18,000 flights were delayed worldwide, with more than 1,200 in the U.S. alone. Multiple airlines noted they are facing troubles with technology in posts on X.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a post that it “is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines.”

“Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved,” the FAA added.

Around 10:15 a.m. EDT, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on social media that his team was “continuing to address effects on transportation systems from today’s widespread tech outage. Many flights are impacted as systems recover—passengers should check with their airline for updates and visit our website for more on passenger protections.”

Airline passengers in the U.S., Europe and Asia faced lengthy lines, with carriers facing trouble accessing check-in and booking services.

Additionally, some news outlets in Australia could not get back on air for hours, and banks in South Africa and New Zealand said they faced outages with payment systems, websites or apps.

“Officials are aware of reporting related to a Microsoft outage that has caused disruption globally,” David Seymour, the acting prime minister of New Zealand, said in a post on X. “I have not currently received any reporting to indicate these issues are related to malicious cyber security activity.”

The Associated Press contributed.

Updated at 10:17 a.m. ET