CrowdStrike: A Massive Global Tech Outage Takes Down Computers

A huge global tech outage took down computers using Microsoft all over causing disruptions to flights, banks, and media outlets. This was caused by a flawed update by Crowdstrike, an American cybersecurity firm, whose systems are designed to protect users from hackers.

CrowdStrike did send a fix, but there are systems that were still affected and needed manual updates to their systems to resolve the issue.

The CrowdStrike update caused disruptions that were first reported at companies running Microsoft’s Windows Operating system in Australia on Friday early morning. The computers showed Blue Screens of Death and the disruptions started flooding in from around the world including, India, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US.

The US airlines, United, Delta, and American Airlines issued a global ground stop on all flights. More than 1,300 flights have been canceled and many others have been delayed.

The shares of CrowdStrike opened nearly 15% down on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York. This reportedly wiped about $12.5 bn off the value of the cybersecurity company.

Crowdstrike boss George Kurtz says he’s “deeply sorry” for the disruption.

Meanwhile, Tesla and X boss Elon Musk earlier stated that today’s outage was the ‘biggest IT fail ever’.