LOS ANGELES — Airports, ports, government agencies and private businesses across the Southland were recovering Saturday from a massive global technology outage caused by a botched software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike that experts described as “the largest IT outage in history.”
IT experts have warned that it could take weeks for the world’s global technology infrastructure to be fully restored after a botched software update on Friday took down computer systems around the world.
“In some cases, a fix may be applied quickly,” Adam Leon-Smith of the British Chartered Institute of IT (BCS) told reporters, “but if the computer responds with a blue screen, it could take days or even weeks.”
In the Southland, systems across the region were affected, causing flight delays and cancellations at local airports, disruptions at the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach and headaches for other computer-dependent operations.
As of early Saturday, flight-tracking website FlightAware was reporting 93 cancellations and 304 delays at Los Angeles International Airport, a significant decrease from Friday, when at least 190 cancellations and 614 delays were reported at the airport.
Orange County’s John Wayne Airport had 22 cancellations and 26 delays Saturday, Hollywood Burbank Airport had nine cancellations and 14 delays and Long Beach Airport had 19 delays and no cancellations.
Flights departing from Los Angeles International Airport, Hollywood Burbank Airport and Long Beach Airport were temporarily grounded on Friday after airlines asked the FAA to ground all flights, according to an FAA alert.
Flights at John Wayne Airport were not grounded, but there were sporadic cancellations and delays.
Overall, FlightAware reported more than 45,000 flight delays on Friday, including 12,427 within or to/from the U.S. In addition, more than 3,000 U.S.-related cancellations were reported.
By early Saturday afternoon, 1,675 cancellations and 5,757 delays had been reported for flights to and from the United States.
FAA officials said they are “working with airlines to closely monitor the global IT issue that may continue to affect air travel this weekend.”
“There are delays on United, Delta and American Airlines flights. Our communications center is in constant contact with the FAA,” LAX spokesman Day Levine told City News Service on Friday morning.
American Airlines released a statement saying, “We are aware of the Crowdstrike technical issues affecting multiple airlines. American Airlines is working with Crowdstrike to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and apologizes for any inconvenience caused to customers.”
American Airlines said in a statement at 2 a.m. Friday that flights had resumed normal.
CrowdStrike, a US cybersecurity company based in Austin, Texas, has accepted responsibility for the error and is working to fix it.
The technical outage affected systems around the world, with issues reported at Berlin Airport in Germany, the London Stock Exchange, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Gatwick Airport in the UK.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a statement that the outage was “not the result of a security or cyber incident.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation and deeply apologize for any inconvenience and trouble caused,” he said. “We are working with all affected customers to ensure that systems are restored and we can provide the service they expect. As stated above, the issue has been identified and a fix is being deployed.”
Meanwhile, CrowdStrike officials said the flawed update had been rolled back and that Microsoft was investigating the scope of the outage.
In a statement posted on social media on Friday morning, Microsoft said it was “investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”
Los Angeles Superior Court officials reported “significant system-wide connectivity issues” that are affecting court operations. All hearings with remote appearances scheduled for Friday have been postponed and parties have been notified of new dates.
Late on Friday, the court said it had been targeted by hackers in an incident apparently unrelated to the global technology outage.
“The court has confirmed a significant security event occurred on the court’s internal systems, which has now been determined to be a ransomware attack,” officials said. “The attack began in the early hours of Friday, July 19th. This attack is believed to be unrelated to the CrowdStrike issues currently causing technology disruptions around the world. The court is working closely with authorities to investigate and mitigate the impact of the breach, and will share more information as it becomes available.”
Cargo traffic at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach was also disrupted Friday, with hundreds of trucks waiting for hours to unload and load cargo.
However, operations returned to normal later in the day.
The Port of Los Angeles announced, “The Port of Los Angeles is fully operational. All container terminal gates clear following the CrowdStrike/Microsoft global outage.”
“Despite the ongoing global technology outage, the Port of Long Beach’s marine terminals remain open and cargo handling began normal this morning,” the Port of Long Beach posted on X on Friday. “Four terminals experienced computer issues overnight but were able to resolve the issues with minimal disruption.”
Both the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department said they had not experienced any disruptions.
The Orange County Fire Department reported that the power outage “temporarily” affected some of the department’s internal systems, but that emergency response was not affected.
Amtrak reported Friday that the outage prevented credit card transactions on its Pacific Surfliner service, which accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPay for online reservations.
Metrolink notified users on Friday morning that the outage was affecting its smartphone app, warning that “riders may experience issues using the app or purchasing tickets.” The issue was resolved by later in the morning.
Coffee giant Starbucks was also affected, with its online ordering system going down on Friday morning.