The boss of the cybersecurity firm responsible for worldwide IT outages admits it could be "some time" before all systems are back up and running
While the software bug has been fixed, experts say the manual reboot of each affected Microsoft computer will take a huge amount of work
Thousands of flights have been cancelled, with banking, healthcare and payment systems all affected
In the UK, GPs have been struggling to access records, pharmacies have been hit and TV channels knocked off air
Yasmin Rufo
Culture reporter
CBBC is now back on air after being down all morning. The children’s channel and Sky News were the only British channels that had problems.
Some global channels are still down - Paramount channels MTV, VH1, CMT and Pop TV are offline as well as ESPN cable channels.
Both Sky News and ABC News Australia are back on air, but are broadcasting without graphics.
Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent
For my money, we’ve not seen as bad an IT issue since the WannaCry cyber-attack in May 2017.
That was a malicious cyber-attack that affected an old version of Windows and spread automatically and uncontrollably to any computer that had that old and unprotected Windows software.
It affected an estimated 300,000 computers in 150 different countries. Famously the NHS was badly hit with huge disruption for days.
In that case, it was an attack that got out of hand. Today's outage was caused by a defect found in a Crowdstrike cyber-security software update.
Faisal Islam
Economics editor
Crowdstrike has lost a fifth of its value in pre-market trading in the US - down 21% in unofficial trading.
If confirmed when US stock markets open later today, that is a loss of $16 billion in its overnight valuation.
Industry insiders say the problem is centred on the fact that cloud security companies have very high level privileges to update the core systems of their customers.
When this works, it helps protect their systems. When an attempted update fails, it brings down the systems they are supposed to protect, all at once.
While the fix is in theory, simple - updating systems physically from backup disks - in practice this is now more difficult in a cloud computing world.
Governments face serious questions about how resilient our economic infrastructure is to this sort of epic failure.
Does it make sense to allow significant concentration on one company or product?
Here's the full statement from George Kurtz, the CEO of Crowdstrike:
"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 organisations ensure they’re communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels.
"Our team is fully mobilised to ensure the security and stability of Crowdstrike customers."
Here's a new update from Microsoft:
“We're aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming," a Microsoft spokesperson says.
Carmel O'Grady
BBC News education team
Schoolcomms - a communication app used by over 3,000 schools - says it is among the many companies affected by the outage.
Parents use the app to make payments to school, order dinners and book children into after-school clubs. They are also often the main method of communication with schools for parents.
Schoolcomms apologised to customers in a post on X, external.
Hugh Pym
Health editor
One hospital source says systems affected so far include:
It's a long list - but the systems are not entirely down and not every hospital and/or patient is affected.
Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent
It appears that the so-called "Blue Screen of Death" that computers are suffering means that each one needs to get "hands on keyboards treatment".
That is, it appears to be not something that can be fixed with a central command from an IT administrator in a firm’s HQ. They will need to go and reboot each and every computer affected.
If it is indeed a Crowdstrike issue that could be a monumental task. Crowdstrike reported having nearly 24,000 customers in its last earnings.
Each customer is a large organisation, so the number of individual end points could be enormous.
Tom Gerken
BBC News
We don't yet know what is causing the IT outage affecting companies around the world.
But earlier today American Airlines blamed a "technical issue with Crowdstrike" - and now the Swiss cyber security office is pointing the finger, too (see previous post).
Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity company founded in 2011 with the aim of safeguarding the world’s biggest companies and hardware from cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
It specialises in endpoint security protection and tries to prevent malicious software or files from hitting corporate networks from devices that connect to them, such as phones and laptops.
It also aims to protect the data of companies which have shifted from guarding it under their own roof, or on their own servers, to so-called cloud providers.
The Texas-based firm was co-founded by entrepreneurs George Kurtz, who remains chief executive, and Dmitri Alperovitch. It listed its shares publicly on the tech heavy Nasdaq stock exchange in 2019.
Since it first launched, the company has seemingly played a key role in helping firms investigate cyber-attacks.
In 2016 Crowdstrike was called in by the US Democratic National Committee, the strategy arm of the Democrat Party, to investigate a breach into its computer network.
A faulty update or misconfiguration by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is behind the worldwide IT outage, the Swiss Federal Office for Cyber Security tells Reuters news agency.
Image source, EPAMore than 1,000 flights have been cancelled around the world today so far, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
This figure - currently 1,078 - will only get bigger as the knock-on impacts grow.
The firm also says today was set to be the busiest day for UK flight departures so far this year, with more than 3,200 departures scheduled – the highest number of daily departures since October 2019.
IT outage causes huge queues and flight disruption at Madrid airport
Hugh Pym
Health editor
Following from that breaking line, here's the full statement from NHS England.
"The NHS is aware of a global IT outage and an issue with EMIS, an appointment and patient record system, which is causing disruption in the majority of GP practices.
"The NHS has long-standing measures in place to manage the disruption, including using paper patient records and handwritten prescriptions, and the usual phone systems to contact your GP.
"There is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, so people should use these services as they usually would.
"Patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise. Only contact your GP if it’s urgent, and otherwise please use 111 online or call 111."
NHS England says the global power outage is affecting most GP practices - but there is currently no known impact on emergency services.
The UK supermarket earlier said it had problems in some stores - but now says they're "resolved".
Jemma, who is on maternity leave, is travelling with her six-month-old baby daughter Elin
A family from Bristol is stuck at Palma de Mallorca Airport after the IT outage caused delays at check-in desks.
Jemma Wheeler, 30, says her family of five has been standing in the same queue for three hours.
"We only came for a five-night short break," she tells the BBC. "We thought it was a quick, two-hour flight and we would be back in no time to enjoy the nice weather at home."
Joshua Nevett
Reporting from Luton airport
I’m sitting somewhat forlornly at London Luton airport, where my Wizz Air flight to Vilnius was supposed to depart at 08:00 this morning.
As we waited to board, news of the global IT outage rippled across the phones of passengers in the queue. And it soon became apparent that our travel plans would be disrupted.
A check-in staffer later confirmed all IT systems were down, and the flight wouldn’t be taking off for a while. He said the airline was working towards manual check-ins.
As for how long that would take, a shrug said it all.
In the UK, trains are still running, with one major operator saying it is "not disastrous".
But there are delays and cancellations reported across the network - National Rail says the following operators are affected:
Ladbrokes says: "You might have seen the news about the global technical issue affecting airlines, banks etc.
"Unfortunately we're experiencing this too. We're working hard to resolve the issue but don't know when it will be fixed.
"Thanks for being so patient and apologies for the inconvenience."
Hugh Pym
Health editor
A spokesperson for the UK's National Pharmacy Association says: "We're aware that due to global IT outages that services in community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today.
"We urge patients to be patient whilst visiting their pharmacy."
Morrisons says it is having "some issues" with payment in some of their shops, and it is working hard to resolve it.