911 call centers back online after IT outage causes global chaos

July 19 (UPI) — Many emergency services affected by the global IT outage began coming back online Friday afternoon while the rest of the world was still reeling from the impact the glitch had on air travel, television and public infrastructure.

Emergency 911 services were hit in several U.S. states, including Alaska, where a major call center outage forced state police to provide alternate emergency numbers until services came back online hours later.

But by 4:23 a.m. local time, the Alaska State Troopers’ official Facebook account gave an update that emergency services were back up and running.

New Hampshire and Plano, Texas, were among the other states and communities impacted by the glitch, but reported later in the afternoon that 911 services have resumed.

The outages appeared to be caused by a CrowdStrike cybersecurity software update, with United Airlines saying it was working with the Texas-based provider to fix a “technical issue that is impacting multiple carriers.”

“A third-party software outage is impacting computer systems worldwide, including at United,” the Chicago-based carrier told the BBC.

“While we work to restore those systems, we are holding all aircraft at their departure airports. Flights already airborne are continuing to their destinations.”

CrowdStrike, which confirmed the issue was the result of a defect in a content update for Windows hosts for which it had issued a fix, stressed it was not a security incident or cyberattack but warned its customers against fake sites or fraudsters purporting to represent the firm.

“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” said CEO George Kurtz.

“We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels.

Kurtz stressed there was no malicious intent behind the outages.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” he said on X.

The Federal Communications Commission said Friday morning it had begun looking into the glitch

“We’re aware of reports of a systems outage causing disruptions in service, including 911. We’re working closely with other federal agencies to provide assistance and determine the extent of these service disruptions,” the FCC said on X Friday morning.

The issue grounded flights and disrupted train services, logistics, hospitals, banks and stock exchanges. Some TV networks have been forced off-air, unable to broadcast.

In addition to United, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines also grounded all flights globally, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said and Europe’s largest airline, Ryanair, reported it had been badly hit by a “third-party IT outage entirely out of our control,” while long lines formed at airports in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Manchester and all four London airports.

Passengers arriving at airport departures were met with blank screens on displays where real-time flight information is displayed.

Germany’s Lufthansa and Eurowings and SAS, the flag carrier of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, reported issues with their booking or online check-in systems while the Netherlands’ KLM said it had “largely suspended operations” as flight handling had become “impossible.”

Zurich airport said flights were not permitted to land.

In Asia, Delhi airport was forced to switch to manual check-in and use white-boards to post flight information while Tokyo’s Narita Airport reported Qantas and at least four regional carriers were experiencing systems issues.

Microsoft said it was “aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.”

It said it was working to mitigate the issues in a series of updates posted on X overnight in which it said it was also “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate, healthy, systems to alleviate the impact in a more expedient fashion.”

In an update Friday afternoon Microsoft said the underlying causes have been fixed, and all previously impacted Microsoft 365 apps and services had recovered.

In Britain, 15 train companies were affected, and Sky TV and the BBC also both hit, with Sky off the air for several hours, the London Stock Exchange’s regulatory/research announcements service was knocked out while National Health Service primary care was badly hit.

NHS England said the outage was causing disruptions at the majority of the country’s 6,300 doctors’ offices but that it was not aware of any known impact on 999 emergency services.

Even after U.K. agencies and companies started going back online, the glitch caused a backlog of delayed and cancelled appointments and other issues that might not be resolved for several days.

In Australia, Sydney Airport and Melbourne Airport reported issues and Virgin Australia was forced to cancel flights.

A meeting of emergency agencies was underway in Canberra attended by representatives of major grocery and retail chains, major telcos and internet providers, the banking and finance sector, airlines, utilities, transport and logistics providers, and state and territory administrations.

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