Travel, banks and more hit by global technology disruption

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Long Island organizations are navigating a major internet outage that is causing disruption across the globe.

The outage affecting Microsoft is disrupting flights, banks, media outlets and companies across the world, with problems continuing hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing an issue affecting access to Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Airlines and airports in the United States, Europe, Australia, India and elsewhere were reporting problems, with some flights grounded. Retail outlets, banks, railway companies and hospitals in several parts of the world were also affected in what appeared to be an unprecedented internet disruption.

The Town of Islip, which owns Long Island MacArthur Airport, said passengers should check for updates.

The airport saw “few minor delays,” a spokesperson told LIBN. “Passengers should check with their air carrier for changes, delays or cancellations before heading to the airport.”

Northwell Health, headquartered in New Hyde Park, said it “is currently experiencing sporadic technology impacts due to a global issue caused by a faulty update from a third-party cybersecurity provider, CrowdStrike. Where needed, we have implemented standard emergency response procedures to ensure the continued quality of care and safety of our patients,” the health system said in a statement to LIBN.

The Long Island Rail Road which serves 200,000 customers on weekdays, said passengers should listen for announcements.

“Some MTA customer information systems are temporarily offline due to a worldwide technical outage. Train and bus service is unaffected. Please listen for station and crew announcements,” according to the LIRR website.

The problem has been attributed to the cybersecurity platform CrowdStrike.

George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, said the problem is not a security incident.

On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Kurtz said “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. 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. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

The outage could have been avoided, one IT expert said.

“The CrowdStrike issue is a case of a software company not properly performing quality assurance testing before releasing an update to their software,” Daniel Ford, chief information security officer of Jovia Financial Credit Union, said in a statement to LIBN.

“And, this isn’t the first time this has happened to an endpoint security product,” Ford said. “McAffee had a similar disaster back in 2009 or 2010 and they also didn’t test the software.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.