A WORLDWIDE IT outage has hit GP practices, transport and businesses around Winchester.

In a statement on social media, cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the global IT outage, dubbed "the biggest of all time", was “not a security incident or cyberattack”.

It added: “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.” Microsoft was also involved in the outage.

St Clements Surgery, Friarsgate Practice and St Paul's Surgery in Winchester all had problems accessing medical records, causing chaos with appointments. Hundreds of people were alerted by phone.

READ MORE: Global IT outage causing chaos in Winchester

The IT outage was caused by an update  (Image: Ron Lach from Pexels)

Commuters trying to buy rail tickets this morning faced disruption at Winchester train station as South Western Railway announced that all ticket vending machines were "non-operational".

The IT outage was “causing disruption in the majority of GP practices” in England but there is currently no known impact on 999 or emergency services, NHS England said.

Microsoft has said that the underlying cause of the problem has been fixed.

SEE MORE: Windows users given steps to fix PCs after IT outage

Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike says a "defect" in one of its software updates hit Windows operating systems

Overnight, Microsoft confirmed it was investigating an issue with its services and apps, with the tech giant’s service health website warning of “service degradation” that meant users may not be able to access many of the company’s most popular services, used by millions of business and people around the world.

Cybersecurity expert Troy Hunt also reported seeing issues at global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, with Australian telecoms firm Telstra posting to X, formerly Twitter, that the worldwide outage was “because of a global issue affecting both Microsoft and CrowdStrike”.