A mass IT outage is causing chaos globally, with planes grounded and businesses disrupted. A number of airports have been affected, amongst them Luton and London City, as Windows PCs display the dreaded 'blue screen of death' across the globe.

Sky News was amongst the broadcasters taken offline earlier this morning as a result of a Microsoft outage that started late last night in the US.

Trains in the UK were also affected. Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern all reported issues as at 09:45 Friday morning.

The NHS, banks and telecoms companies have also been taken offline. Supermarkets were also impacted, with some branches only accepting cash payments in a post-pandemic volte- face.

The ongoing outage underlines the pressing need for cyber-physical risk management in an increasingly connected world. This morning's problems represent a particular challenge for critical national infrastructure, and other business-critical operational technologies.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre says cyber-physical risk requires "concerted and significant collaborative effort from multiple and diverse disciplines" over the next decade. Its recently published guide to cyber-physical risk can be found here.

Government systems are understood not to have been affected by Microsoft's outage.

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