Microsoft: Main cause of global outage fixed

Microsoft said the “root cause” of a massive IT outage has been fixed for its apps, but “residual impact” is still affecting some services.

The company had previously said the issue was due to “an update from a third-party software platform” – which has now been confirmed as Crowdstrike.

A global technology outage grounded flights, shut down banks and took media outlets offline on Friday in a massive disruption that affected businesses and services around the world and highlighted the reliance on software from a handful of providers.

Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike said the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or a cyberattack.

The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and the escalating disruptions continued hours after the tech company said it was gradually working to fix it.

Downdetector, which tracks internet outages reported by users, has recorded increasing outages at Visa, ADT Security, Amazon and airlines including Delta and American Airlines.

Australian media reported that airlines, telecom providers, banks and media outlets were down due to loss of access to computer systems. Airlines in the UK, Europe and India reported issues and some New Zealand banks said they were offline.

Microsoft 365 posted on its X app that the company is “working to reroute affected traffic to alternative systems to mitigate the impact in a more appropriate manner” and that they are “noticing a positive trend in service availability.”