A software update caused widespread disruptions on Friday, grounding flights, taking broadcasters off the air, and affecting services ranging from banking to healthcare.
The trigger appeared to be an update to a product by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, impacting customers using Microsoft’s Windows Operating System. Microsoft later confirmed the issue had been fixed.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz addressed the situation on the social media platform X, stating the company was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” and that a fix was being deployed. Kurtz emphasized that this was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Early on Friday, major U.S. airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines, grounded flights. Other carriers and airports worldwide reported delays and disruptions.
Banks and financial services companies from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of disruptions. Traders across markets reported difficulties executing transactions, with one trader describing it as “the mother of all global market outages.”
In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, according to multiple reports on X by medical officials. Sky News, one of the country’s major news broadcasters, was off the air and apologized for being unable to transmit live. Additionally, Manchester United announced on X that it had to postpone a scheduled release of tickets.
Microsoft’s cloud unit Azure acknowledged the issue affecting virtual machines running Windows OS, where the CrowdStrike Falcon agent was stuck in a “restarting state,” amid the global outage. “We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
In an alert to clients issued at 5:30 a.m. GMT on Friday, CrowdStrike noted that its “Falcon Sensor” software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display the “Blue Screen of Death.” The company also shared a manual workaround to rectify the issue.
Over half of Fortune 500 companies use CrowdStrike software, according to a promotional video by the U.S. firm this year.
“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core Internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre.
The outages rippled far and wide, highlighting the interconnected nature of modern digital infrastructure.
