A global internet outage on Friday caused major disruptions in Illinois and Indiana, impacting various services including Microsoft, flights, and DMVs. Microsoft experienced issues with access to Microsoft 365 apps and services, affecting flights in Chicago and other public transportation services.
In Illinois, DMVs were impacted, with Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias advising people to call before visiting any location as operating hours and services, including road tests, may be affected. The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles also faced trouble processing transactions due to the outage.
Microsoft 365 reassured customers that they were working on rerouting traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact and observed a positive trend in service availability. While a majority of services were recovered, some customers may still experience issues.
The cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, at the center of the outage, clarified that it was due to a defect in a Windows update and not a security incident or cyberattack. CEO George Kurtz confirmed that the issue was identified, isolated, and a fix was deployed. The company recommended customers to refer to its support portal for updates. Mac and Linux hosts were not affected by the defect.
The outage also caused delays or cancellations in flights across the country and around the world. The situation is gradually being resolved as services are being restored.
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