Banking services, flights, railways, and media outlets around the world have been affected by a major IT outage.

Disruptions have been reported in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the UK and the U.S., the BBC reported.

Within Singapore, both Lianhe Zaobao and The Straits Times reported that they had been affected by the outage.

According to Downdetector.sg, there appears to have been a spike in Microsoft 365 outages beginning from about 6am on the morning of Jul. 19 (United States time).

Microsoft crash reportedly linked to cybersecurity software

At about 7:41am on Jul. 19, the Microsoft 365 Status X page posted an update, saying it was investigating an issue affecting the ability of users to access Microsoft 365 apps and services.

We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services. More info posted in the admin center under MO821132 and on https://t.co/W5Y8dAkjMk

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 18, 2024

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Microsoft issue appears to be linked to Crowdstrike, a U.S.-based cybersecurity provider.

Crowdstrike was reported as saying that it is aware of crashes on Windows related to its new sensor, Falcon, which is used by businesses to gather security data.

It acknowledged on Friday that it had received "widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts", referring to the "blue screen of death" commonly used to describe a system crash on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

The cybersecurity company added:

“Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon sensor. Our engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket."

Top image via Wikipedia