It was the moment we all feared but never thought possible! Television and radio networks taken off-air, flights delayed, shops closed and telcos shut down. In the late hours of the afternoon on Friday, 19th July, the world came to a standstill as US-based cybersecurity provider Crowdstrike experienced a content deployment issue that brought a suite of Microsoft systems down, reducing them to a “blue screen of death”.
The outage lasted for several hours, with most businesses returning to normal operations by early Saturday morning. However, much of the world is still reeling from the outage that many called one of the worst in history.
So, in the wake of the 24-year late Y2K style shutdown, B&T wraps how the world reacted to the moment that stopped the world.
Who was impacted?
Media:
Many major radio players are off-air, with ARN left broadcasting via tape. ABC News anchors were left without autocues and graphics, while Sky News reverted to an international Fox News broadcast for an hour. Sky then started playing a pre-recorded message.
Retail:
Local Coles has lowered its doors and with staff telling customers they’re closing. “You’ll hear all about it on the news tonight,” the store manager told a crowd outside. A trolley collector is telling people as they get out of their cars Coles is closed. pic.twitter.com/aHGXgMnYWY
— Molly Glassey (@GlasseyMolly) July 19, 2024
In a statement from Woolworths, the supermarket giant confirmed that six of its stores were shut down with all others across the country open and trading. “In some cases, customers may find less registers available than normal so we’re grateful for their patience. A small number of online orders have been unable to be fulfilled and those customers have been contacted”.
“We’d also like to thank the thousands of team members who have helped customers throughout the afternoon and evening,” the statement said.
TECH OUTAGE: Self service machines across Woolworths supermarkets are not operational. Blue screen of death. #crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/RS42zcEQi2
— Archie Staines (@archiestaines9) July 19, 2024
Airports
Reuters also reported that several US airlines, including Delta, have been grounded and that all air traffic has been halted in Berlin until 0800 GMT.
Some airports across the globe were forced to resort to handwritten boarding passes.
The Microsoft / CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India. I got my first hand-written boarding pass today 😅 pic.twitter.com/xsdnq1Pgjr
— Akshay Kothari (@akothari) July 19, 2024
Banks
Commbank was among a series of banks affected by the issue with many customers unable to make PayID payments.
“We are aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies. This outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform,” the bank confirmed in a statement. “If you are unable to use PayID, you’re still able to make payments between your accounts or pay someone using their BSB and account number”.
Emergency services safe
While the issue hit Telstra services, 000 call centres were not affected. “If you’re having holdups when trying to reach us this afternoon, it’s because of a global issue affecting both Microsoft and CrowdStrike,” the Telco confirmed in a post to X that it was working with organisations to rectify the issue.
The Australian government also confirmed that 000 services were impacted by the outage.
Transport Networks
VLine and several Sydney-based train networks were affected, with buses replacing trains for several hours. By about 8 p.m., most networks were back up and running
Government
It is understood that a number of government services across Victoria and NSW, including MyGov and Service NSW, were impacted but returned to normal operations by Saturday morning.
Sport calls time off!
The AFL game between Essendon and Adelaide at Docklands Stadium in Melbourne was also impacted, with an email sent to ticket holders who had not already downloaded their tickets.
No accreditation for the Paris Olympics could be issued for a number of hours, including those for transportation workers, medics and media.
The memes will never be stopped.
While everything else was seemingly down, social media could not be stopped, and boy, was it on fire! From all corners of the globe, memes and funny posts were filling our feeds all referencing the now infamous “blue screen of death”.
Most were just thrilled to have an early mark on a Friday afternoon.
Shout out to Microsoft for letting everyone have an early finish on a Friday pic.twitter.com/fppgrfPUM6
— Rach (@itsrachel_) July 19, 2024
Corporate employees thanking that one person because of whom Microsoft is down pic.twitter.com/dZm8oWv7SP
— Ritik Sahu (@guy_weirdness) July 19, 2024
Microsoft services are down
That too on a FridayCorporate employees everywhere :#microsoftdown pic.twitter.com/3dntjDDwyH
— don vellathottam (@VellathottamDon) July 19, 2024
Fuck yeah!!!
Sending much ❤️❤️ #Microsoft pic.twitter.com/5YlALfy3D7
— Gary 5/29/4 (@FootyLover5) July 19, 2024
But some were disappointed to not be impacted by the outage.
When their is a global outage but your office laptop is working just fine #Microsoft #Crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/1wIOvH25j0
— SwatKat💃 (@swatic12) July 19, 2024
Whoever’s responsible for the Microsoft outage is getting fired anyway, so the smart thing to do would be knock Teams out for the day too and leave a hero.
— Sam Whyte (@SamWhyte) July 19, 2024
Waking up as a Linux user today #Crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/rkC4hGQhLY
— It’s FOSS (@itsfoss2) July 19, 2024
Me showing up at work this morning and seeing that Teams and Outlook are still working https://t.co/JU4a50ugKB
— Dividend Hero (@HeroDividend) July 19, 2024
Others could do nothing more than laugh and cry as the chaos unfolded.
Microsoft right now. pic.twitter.com/5AA5YuseR5
— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) July 19, 2024
The millennium bug showing up 24 years late https://t.co/GzPW7AvRbT pic.twitter.com/WLvkMmGd2g
— L M (@leemc87) July 19, 2024
No wonder Microsoft is buggered, just spotted Clippy now working in Waverley Station pic.twitter.com/Vba1x2MhU4
— Stephen Graham 🇺🇦 (@StephenCVGraham) July 19, 2024
Our IT guys walking into their Super Bowl today pic.twitter.com/BWfcK7IhSx
— High Yield Harry (@HighyieldHarry) July 19, 2024
A true travesty…
a moment of silence for all those affected by today’s tragedy pic.twitter.com/nSAHJH4ASV
— yifei e/λ (@yifever) July 19, 2024
In the headlines!
The Daily Star hit us all in the nostalgia with a classic Little Brittain reference:
Some steered away from comedy, taking a much more ominous approach however.
Saturday’s front page: Day the world stood still#TomorrowsPapersToday https://t.co/pfLdV3r0Pk pic.twitter.com/y36rI8za09
— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) July 19, 2024