A widespread Microsoft outage linked to cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world on Friday, throttling multiple aspects of daily life as New Yorkers -- and people worldwide -- confronted the dreaded "blue screen of death" on several platforms.
Airports in the New York City area were operational, though delays and cancellations were abundant -- Newark and LaGuardia highlighted the list of airports on Flight Aware's "misery map." At LaGuardia, runways sat empty for some time was airlines were forced to ground flights temporarily.
In New York City, some of the digital boards lining Times Square went blank or showed error messages overnight, though city officials jumped into action to ensure essential services were not interrupted.
Trains were running, too, but platform signs and signal times were disrupted across the MTA — so information on train status wasn't available for the commute.
The MTA said train and bus service was unaffected.
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Local
Mayor Adams held a news conference Friday morning. He said the city's critical infrastructure and emergency services were not impacted.
Hundreds of flights in the tri-state were delayed or canceled throughout the day. Across the country, that number was in the thousands.
Both Newark and LaGuardia airports urged passengers to not head there before first checking the status of the flight with the airline.
Commuters looking to order their morning Starbucks ahead were greeted with empty to-go racks, because computers were down.
The FDNY said the city's 911 system is operating normally, with redundancies in place for such incidents which allow them to continue operating using radios without impacting response times.
"If you call for help, we will respond," the department said in a post on social media.
The state' 's Department of Motor Vehicles was unable to process requests online or in-person.
CrowdStrike response
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted on social media platform X that the company “is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
He said: “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
In an interview with TODAY, the Parsippany native and Seton Hall graduate said the botched software update led to the tech meltdown.
"It didn’t seem like it happened on every Windows system. There’s different versions and flavors and patch levels if you will, and we’re just trying to sort out where that negative interaction was," said Kurtz.
The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing it.
Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
New York State Chief Cyber Officer Colin Ahern said the state does not have a timeline for full restoration of computer services.
“We are working with our agencies, local governments, and the third party service provider to resolve any issues on impacted systems. Our priority is to ensure all 911 systems across New York are operational and able to address emergency response needs," Ahern said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he has been briefed on the outage and emergency management officials across the state are coordinating in the response.
"We activated our State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) as of 3:00 a.m. in response to these disruptions and have provided guidance to relevant executive branch agencies on how to address the situation. We are also engaging county and local governments, 911 call centers, and utilities to assess the impact and offer our assistance," Murphy said in a statement.
