Published on: July 19, 2024
Banks, airlines, train companies, and media firms are among numerous businesses that have suddenly gone offline due to a serious IT outage.
The problem originates from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company founded in 2011 that specializes in endpoint security protection and preventing malicious software from hitting corporate networks from devices.
One of the first to point fingers at the company was the Swiss Federal Office for Cyber Security. American Airlines also blamed a “technical issue with Crowdstrike.”
Crowdstrike said the issues were caused by “a defect” in a “content update.”
“Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” the company said in a statement.
Numerous airlines have grounded flights worldwide, including Qantas in Australia, as well as Frontier and Sun Country Airlines in the US.
Many more reported delays, mostly due to the outage affecting their check-in systems. Ryanair customers have reported not being able to check in for their flights on Friday morning on the app and website. The company wrote on X the disruption is caused by a “Global 3rd party IT outage which is out of our control.”
UK broadcaster Sky News was forced off the air for several hours and hospitals in Britain and Germany also reported experiencing problems with their clinical computer systems.
Some affected companies and individuals around the globe pointed fingers to Microsoft. Many on social media shared pictures and videos of their Windows devices showing the so-called “Blue Screen of Death” and entering recovery mode.
Microsoft 365 said it’s taking “mitigation actions” to resolve the issue and a spokesperson for the company later in the day confirmed “the majority of services were recovered” hours earlier.
The company then said a resolution for Windows devices is “forthcoming” and that a third party is at fault.
“We are aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third party software platform,” the company said.