TOPLINE
Microsoft and the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike have issued fixes for the global outage impacting computers running the Windows operating system, though issues still linger as the outage has forced major airlines to ground flights, disrupted television and put banking services offline.
KEY FACTS
The outage has been blamed on a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which has resulted in many Windows systems experiencing the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) while booting.
The underlying issue causing outages for Microsoft’s 365 apps and services—including Outlook, Teams and Office—has been fixed, the company said, though a “residual impact” is continuing to affect some services.
CrowdStrike president and chief executive George Kurtz said the company was “actively working” with customers impacted by an issue found in a content update on Windows computers, adding the “issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Microsoft said it is aware of the issue affecting machines running Windows, and noted it is affecting systems running CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software.
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The U.S. Emergency Alerts System said 911 lines in multiple states were down.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, nearly all major American carriers—including Delta, American and United—have been forced to temporarily ground all their flights due to the outage, while carriers and airports including Air India, KLM, Hong Kong International Airport, Berlin Brandenburg Airport and London Stansted also reported disruptions, forcing some of them to rely on manual check-ins with long queues being reported.
The London Stock Exchange group said its workspace platform was also facing an outage preventing it from publishing statements while banks and payment terminals in Australia were also affected, though the New York Stock Exchange reportedly said its systems were unaffected.
CrowdStrike’s shares tanked nearly 16.8% to $285.49 in pre-market trading, while Microsoft’s stock slipped around 2.3% to $430.28.
BIG NUMBER
1,281. That’s the number of flight cancellations across the U.S. on Friday, in addition to 2,905 delays as of 9:15 a.m. EDT, according to FlightAware.com. It’s estimated that up to 3.7 million passengers are flying out of U.S. airports on Friday across 24,000 domestic flights and 3,000 international flights, the aviation analytics firm Cirium said.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
Ciaran Martin, former director of the U.K. National Cyber Security Centre, told Forbes: “The damage happened where CrowdStrike and Windows are both used … That’s a lot of important companies. It’s a striking and very concerning illustration of the fragility of digital infrastructure.” Ciaran noted that while the update fixing the issue can be rolled out “quite quickly,” different organizations could take time to implement it “And then there’s the massive logistical tailback in things like aviation.”
TANGENT
CrowdStrike’s website describes Falcon—the software whose update has been blamed for the crash—as a “platform purpose-built to stop breaches… including malware and much more.” The service’s frequently asked questions (FAQ) page describes Falcon as “unobtrusive,” adding: “There’s no UI, no pop-ups, no reboots, and all updates are performed silently and automatically.”
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
While CrowdStrike said it has rolled out a fix, it could take companies some time to deploy it. Brian Honan, founder of Ireland’s Computer Emergency Response Team told Forbes the fixes require “manual intervention to each individually impacted device, which could lead to a long recovery time from this problem.”
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This is a developing story.
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