Windows Global IT outage: CrowdStrike update grounds aircraft, banks and broadcasters also down

Windows computers across the world are experiencing the dreaded blue screen of death (BSoD) caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update. The issue is affecting airlines, broadcasters, banks, and many other businesses.

Delta, United, and American Airlines have been forced to ground flights, and other airports and airlines across the world including Australia, India, Japan, and the UK are experiencing huge delays. Virgin Australia, Qantas Airways, and RyanAir are among the affected airlines.

The state of Alaska is currently experiencing a 999 outage, according to the state’s Trooper’s Facebook page. British news channel Sky News has been unable to broadcast and the London Stock Exchange website is down, though the exchange itself is still trading.

What is CrowdStrike and why is it causing global disruption?

CrowdStrike Holdings is an American cybersecurity company with customers across the world, hence the far-reaching nature of this outage. It manages the security of companies’ IT infrastructure, particularly to prevent network threats like ransomware and cyber attacks.

The nature of being a security service means CrowdStrike’s products have wide-reaching access across the systems it protects, hence the crippling effect of a single faulty update.

The outage seems to be connected to a faulty update pushed live by the company in the early hours of Friday morning. The company has issued a support note acknowledging the issue: “We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions.”

While the company has found the issue and reverted the update that caused the current outage, the fix does not seem to apply to machines that have already been affected.

Phoning CrowdStrike’s support line is equally futile: they are running a pre-recorded message acknowledging the fault. “Thanks for contacting Crowdstrike support. Crowdstrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows related to the Falcon sensor.”

Troy Hunt, the creator of HaveIBeenPwned, a data breach checker, has taken to X, posting that “this will be the largest IT outage in history.”

I don’t think it’s too early to call it: this will be the largest IT outage in history

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 19, 2024

Participants in a thread of sys admins on Reddit are also discussing the outage. “This is an insane event for the world’s infrastructure,” said one user. Others are discussing how huge this issue is for their companies, with one person stating their company has over 14,000 endpoints that have been affected.

Featured image credit: generated by Ideogram

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