A technology outage caused by a faulty software update caused disruptions to companies and services around the world Friday, including in Indiana and Johnson County.
Flights were grounded and banks and media outlets were knocked down while hospital systems, governments and other businesses were disrupted across the globe as a result of the outage affecting Microsoft Windows systems through an update provided by CrowdStrike. The cybersecurity firm provides cloud-based software to numerous companies and organizations worldwide.
The problem occurred when CrowdStrike deployed a faulty update for one of its tools, “Falcon,” to computers running Microsoft Windows. Mac and Linux systems were not impacted, according to the company.
The issue was not a security incident or cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
But hours after the problem was first detected, disruptions continued — and escalated across the globe.
Businesses and governments worldwide experienced hours-long disruptions — their computer monitors glowing blue with error messages — and scrambled to deal with the fallout. CrowdStrike’s CEO said some of their systems will require manual fixes.
Long lines formed at airports in the U.S., Europe and Asia as airlines lost access to check-in and booking services, leading to thousands of delays and cancellations. This includes Indianapolis International Airport, with videos and photos on social media showing long lines early Friday morning.
The issue has caused some airlines to have a ground stop on flights, and the Federal Aviation Administration said it was “closely monitoring” the issue. By Friday afternoon, the FAA had lifted some ground stop orders but many passengers were still stranded.
As of 4:45 p.m. Friday, 86 delays and 38 cancellations were reported at Indianapolis International Airport, according to FlightAware, a global flight tracker. In a post on X, the airport said travelers who planned to depart from the airport should “check with their airline for updates on flight status before coming to the terminal.”
The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles was also affected by the outage, which caused the agency to be unable to process transactions for a portion of the day Friday. myBMV was back online after 2 p.m., along with many BMV Connect kiosks, but officials said branches were still working to restore their systems.
The Social Security Administration closed all offices for the day, including offices in Columbus and Indianapolis, because of the continuing effects of the outage. Their phone line, 800-772-1213, remained open, as did some online services, the agency said.
At least one Indianapolis television station — WTHR — was affected by the outage, with anchors saying in a Facebook video that it impacted their morning newscasts.
Across the county, Bargersville and Franklin reported impacts from the outage.
Bargersville’s billing system was down, but they were working to restore connections, town officials said in a Facebook post.
Some of Franklin’s systems were down for about an hour or so, but everything was up and running before noon, Mayor Steve Barnett said.
The city of Greenwood only reported having an issue with its timekeeping system for employees. But Mayor Mark Myers believed it was up and running again as of 10:35 a.m., he said.
There were also reports of Circle K gas stations across Central Indiana being only able to accept cash due to the outage. The Circle K at King Street and Interstate 65 in Franklin was among those affected, with signs informing customers they were cash only. An employee said it was because of the outage.
While there were reports of issues with 911 systems in some parts of Indiana because of the outage, Johnson County 911 was not affected. The only issue they reported having was difficulty accessing state systems, like the BMV, said Heath Brant, 911 executive director.
The Indiana State Police saw some effects, but their radio and 911 systems were fully functional. They were able to respond to emergencies, said Sgt. John Perrine, a spokesperson for the Indianapolis Post.
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office was unaffected by the outage, Sheriff Duane Burgess said. Johnson Memorial Health also reported having no issues, said Dr. David Dunkle, president and CEO. Franciscan Health was not affected either as they are not a CrowdStrike customer, spokesperson Tony Veneziano said.
Community Health Network’s electronic medical records and major clinical systems were not impacted. They did have some third-party systems that were experiencing issues due to the outage, but nothing that impacts patient care, spokesperson Bobbie Brooks said.
Duke Energy was aware of the CrowdStrike issue and their systems were working as expected Friday afternoon. Earlier in the day, some of their third-party payment vendors were experiencing issues which have since been resolved, spokesperson McKenzie Barbknecht said.
Elsewhere across the globe, news outlets in Australia — where telecommunications were severely affected — were pushed off air for hours. Hospitals and doctor’s offices had problems with their appointment systems, while banks in South Africa and New Zealand reported outages to their payment system or websites and apps.
Both FedEx and UPS warned of potential package delays because of the global outages. Contingency plans are in place, both companies said in postings on their respective websites.
Downdetector, which tracks user-reported disruptions to internet services, recorded that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping websites across the world were affected — although the disruption appeared piecemeal and was apparently related to whether the companies used Microsoft cloud-based services.
Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impacts” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
President Joe Biden was briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and his team has been in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities, according to the White House. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is working with CrowdStrike, Microsoft and their federal, state, local and critical infrastructure partners to “fully assess and address system outages,” officials said.
Daily Journal reporter Elissa Maudlin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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