Reem Makhoul / Business Insider
A mass IT outage has caused widespread disruption to major airlines, retailers, banks, and media outlets around the world, after Microsoft reported problems with its online services, linked to an issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue in an X update early Friday: writing, "Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions."
While businesses scramble to deal with the consequences of the hit, social media users are responding in the best way they know how: memes.
Many PC users logged on to their computers on Friday to be met with Window's so-called blue screen of death.
And people online are rejoicing at the prospect of being unable to work.
"Happy International Bluescreen Day, " one user posted on X. Attached is a photo of five laptops on an office desk, all displaying the "blue screen of death."
Some reshared a meme on X of the blue screen of death edited onto the massive external dome screen of the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Others compared the widespread IT disruption to the specter of Y2K, or the millennium bug.
"Crowdstrike is accomplishing what we thought Y2K would be, it's quite impressive," one user posted on X.
A bunch of people on X and TikTok are posting that the "weekend starts now," as the Friday IT outage leaves them with the blue screen of death. "It's Monday's problem," reads one TikTok caption.
Some workers joked that they don't want the issue fixed anytime soon — so that they can avoid work for longer.
"Crowdstrike, if you are reading this: it's okay sweetie, mistakes happen. Take your own time as we don't need an update on this for at least a few business days," a user posted on X.
While some rejoiced at their laptop working, others unaffected by the outage weren't so happy.
"Microsoft outage but Teams and Outlook are both fine is the adult version of snow that doesn't settle enough for a school closure," another user posted on X.
CrowdStrike is a giant of the online security industry.
On its homepage, it warns about the importance of online security, it reads: "62 minutes could bring your business down," and continues: "When your data, reputation, and revenue are at stake, trust the pioneer in adversary intelligence."
Social media users have been quick to point out the irony of how CrowdStrike's software, which is meant to prevent businesses from being brought down, has ended up accidentally causing so much chaos.
"#Crowdstrike ad aged like milk. Everyone is down across the globe," a post on X read.
Others have made jokes at the expense of Microsoft.
"Microsoft right now," one user captioned a cartoon image on X of a burning house surrounding Clippy, Microsoft Office's former online paperclip assistant, with a speech bubble saying: "This is fine."
And some joked that the outage was caused by Clippy exacting his revenge after being fired from Microsoft.
People have also been posting a clip from a UK TV show, "The IT Crowd": "Have you tried turning it on and off again?"
It's surprisingly similar to advice given in a post on Microsoft's Azure cloud service website.
It had received reports that switching devices on and off again had worked to restore affected "virtual machines" that run remotely — but warns that may have to try this method around 15 times to work.
