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IT outage for airlines, finance, and media sectors: A global IT outage is hitting several sectors across the world on Friday (July 19). From aviation to banking to infrastructure, various industries in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas have been affected. The outage was reportedly caused by a disruption in the cloud services of Microsoft. The outage has blocked access for millions to Microsoft 365 apps and services, including Teams.

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Microsoft is investigating the issue and taking "mitigation actions."

Here's what we know about the outage so far:

> UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) took a grim view of things after Friday's outage by claiming that there will be an increase in phishing incidents in the aftermath. 

> The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said although it wasn't affected by the outage, the agency was still closely monitoring the situation. 

> More than 4,200 flights have been cancelled globally, according to aviation data from Cirium. 

> Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has issued a statement: 

"Yesterday, CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems globally. We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online," wrote Nadella on X. 

> New York state regulators urged banks and companies to be on high-alert amid the global tech outage

> According to Air Traffic Control System Command Center advisory, United Airlines has lifted ground stop for all airports. 

> 911 services were disrupted in several US states including Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

> UK's prominent media network, Sky News, went off air while other channels also faced disruptions due to the outage. 

> Stock markets tumbled across the globe owing to the outage. Shares in CrowdStrike, which has already issued a software fix, tumbled 14.2 per cent but recovered part of the loss during morning trading. Microsoft's shares were down 0.7 per cent approaching midday. 

> Kuala Lumpur International Airport's Terminal 2 faced massive queues on Friday (July 19) as passengers were forced to undergo manual check-ins due to a widespread global IT system outage, reported Reuters.

> As of the last update, more than 3,300 flights had been cancelled worldwide. 

> Crowdstrike's chief executive George Kurtz said the customers remained 'protected' despite the ongoing IT outage. 

"Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected," he said in a post on X.

> CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized for a global tech failure. 

"We're deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our company," he told NBC News' "Today" program.

> Airlines across the world were affected due to the outage. Almost 1,400 flights were cancelled worldwide.

> Flights of American Airlines were not allowed to take off. Another American carrier United Airlines said it was holding all aircraft at its departure airports. 

Also read | Microsoft Cloud outage grounds flights and disrupts airlines worldwide

> Flights were suspended for some hours at Berlin airport. All Spanish airports reported computer system problems. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport was affected.

> In India, the Delhi International Airport and Jaipur Airport were among those affected. SpiceJet and IndiGo were among the airlines affected by the outage in India. India's aviation ministry asked Indian airlines to inform passengers via texts regarding delays and cancellations of flights.

> BBC reported that barcodes were not working at Gatwick airport, leading to manual security checks on boarding passes. Japan's Narita airport also reported IT issues with JetStar, Jeju Air, Qantas, HK Express and Spring Japan.

What is the cause of the IT outage?

Reports are blaming a software update by cybersecurity firm CloudStrike. Its latest antivirus update apparently led to the freezing of devices running on the Microsoft Windows operating system and led to a 'blue screen of death' on desktops and laptops. In its statement, Microsoft said the initial cause was "a configuration change" that “resulted in connectivity failures."

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed," CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a post on social media platform X.

Banking and financial sector affected

In the financial sector, operations of the London Stock Exchange, as well as the website of the Commonwealth Bank were among those affected. Top banking and financial sector firms across the world were affected.

Government buildings, infrastructure and logistics

Some government buildings were affected in countries including New Zealand.

Also watch | Massive worldwide IT outage, Microsoft investigating azure outage

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In Poland, the largest container terminal, Baltic Hub was hit. "Please be advised that we are struggling at the Baltic Hub with a global Microsoft operating system outage that is hampering terminal operations," the port operator said.