CrowdStrike: Leeds Bradford Airport issues surprising cash advice to passengers amid global outage

Businesses and institutions around the world have been been knocked offline after a major IT outage, believed to have been caused by a faulty update to widely used cybersecurity software.

The outage is “causing disruption in the majority of GP practices” in England but there is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, NHS England said.

The health service said patients should attend appointments unless told otherwise and should only contact their GP if it was urgent.

Major infrastructure including airlines, train companies, banks and media outlets have ground to a halt after their computer systems were knocked offline or leaving devices showing the so-called “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD).

Leeds Bradford Airport is operating normally following the outage, but has advised passengers to bring cash with them, in case there are any issues paying for items.

A statement posted on LBA’s X account said: “We’re aware of a global IT outage. LBA is operating normally at this time.

"We advise you to arrive at the airport as normal, but check with your airline before travel.

"As a general piece of advice, we advise customers to bring cash in case of any issues with their bank or payment providers throughout their journey.”

Air traffic control provider Nats said it was unaffected by the IT outage.

A spokesperson said: “We have no IT issues and are operating normally. We are working closely with airports and airlines to understand how best we can support them and their customers.

“We advise passengers to check the status of their flight with their airline.”

Microsoft has confirmed it was aware of and fixing issues with its cloud platform, Azure, but many cybersecurity experts have reported the potential source of the issue as global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which provides cyber attack monitoring and protection to many major businesses.

Experts have said a flawed update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software could be the source of the problem.

CrowdStrike has not issued a statement on the issue, but calls to the company’s technical support phoneline were met with a recorded message which said it was “aware of reports of crashes on Windows … relating to the Falcon sensor.”

CrowdStrike has advised affected customers to log on to their customer service portal for assistance.