Mass IT outage hits companies worldwide as planes grounded

ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD) 

Businesses around the world have been taken offline following a mass global outage.

This affected banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets, amongst others. 

Furthermore, major airlines have been grounded and airport flight activity disrupted, as a result of the IT outage.

Among the affected names was Microsoft; it said work is underway to address the "lingering impact" of its 365 applications and services that are in a "degraded state."

The impact is global as even Sky News in the UK was unable to broadcast live TV on Friday morning.

This is a developing story.