- Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were left stranded for hours in one of the biggest IT disasters in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus program.
- The outage was caused by a faulty software update pushed to Microsoft Windows users by CrowdStrike, which specializes in cybersecurity for cloud-based companies.
- The disruption affected businesses or individuals who use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software caused the computer to crash and go into a frozen state known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”
- Many airports in India have issued handwritten boarding passes to passengers. Several IndiGo flights were cancelled and rescheduled at Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad airports. Departures and arrivals are slowly resuming, but delays are still expected, the airline said today.
- Media companies are also struggling, with Britain’s Sky News saying its morning newscast had been halted because of the glitch, and Australia’s ABC reporting similar difficulties.
- CrowdStrike said it has introduced a fix for the problem and the firm’s boss George Kurtz said in a statement that his teams are “fully mobilised” to help affected customers. However, Kurtz said it may take “some time” to get all systems back up and running
- The global nature of the software failure led some commentators to question the reliance on a single provider for so many diverse services.
- CrowdStrike’s routine update of its widely used cybersecurity software, which caused customers’ computer systems to crash globally on Friday, appeared not to have undergone adequate quality checks before being deployed, security experts said.
- Microsoft said in a statement that it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to the service issues.
- CrowdStrike – which has previously reached a market cap of nearly $83 billion – is a leading cybersecurity provider with nearly 30,000 customers globally. More than half of Fortune 500 companies and many government bodies such as the top US cybersecurity agency use the company’s software.
