An extensive IT outage resulted in significant disruption across various industries from late Thursday to Friday, affecting airlines, retail, banking, healthcare systems, and even broadcasters.
The outage was traced back to a defective software update released by CrowdStrike, a Texas-based cybersecurity firm, for its Microsoft Windows hosts.
In a social media post at 5:45 a.m. ET on Friday, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz acknowledged the issue, stating that it was not a security incident or cyberattack but rather a defect in a content update for Windows hosts. Kurtz assured that the problem had been identified, isolated, and a fix had been implemented.
Microsoft confirmed the problem around 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, acknowledging that it was impacting users’ access to various Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Throughout the night, it became apparent that the issue was widespread, affecting services globally. Major airlines in the U.S. and international carriers experienced flight disruptions due to the IT outage.
Australia’s Sydney Airport was one of the locations where flight displays showed the blue screen of death.
Microsoft later announced at 6:45 a.m. ET on Friday that the underlying cause had been resolved, although some residual impact continued to affect certain Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Sydney Airport flight displays have all BSOD’d. #microsoft #crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/ZL9QwGdi1a
— techAU (@techAU) July 19, 2024
