Airlines, banks,medical facilities and media outlets, plus huge numbers of businesses all around the globe have been hit by a mass IT outage that is crippling computer systems using Microsoft software.

Early reports suggest that a cybersecurity company called Crowd-strike, which produces antivirus software, attempted to roll out a security tool update and this small file has somehow become corrupted.

It has had the effect of “bricking up” Windows devices, prompting the so-called “blue screen of death” on PC’s and experts are predicting that the solution maybe a manual fix, which could be a massive undertaking.

Microsoft said its outage started at about 18:00 ET (23:00 BST) on Thursday 19 July and says it is continuing to deal with “the lingering impact” of the outage.

Amongst the early Airlines to report issues include: United, Delta and American and these have all said they are in contact with those flights currently in the air.

JetStar, Jeju Air, Qantas, HK Express and Spring are all having system problems in Japan and in India, Delhi airport says some services have been temporarily impacted.

Sydney, Singapore, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Madrid are also having issues, with manual check-in’s being reported; more are undoubtedly going to follow.

London Stock Exchange group’s platform has said too is experiencing issues, and Sky News is off-air in the UK.

It seems likely that the problem is going to get worse before gets better. It is ironic that the software designed to protect has in actual fact brought huge numbers of vital infrastructure all around the world, to a virtual standstill.