Airlines, Banks, and Healthcare Disrupted in Global IT Outage
Cybersecurity Firm CrowdStrike Apologizes, Assures Clients Issue Is Not a Cyberattack
A global IT outage disrupted operations across multiple industries on Friday, halting flights, affecting banks, and creating challenges for healthcare systems. The issue originated from CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software, which caused Microsoft Windows to crash and display the notorious “blue screen of death.”
CEO George Kurtz of CrowdStrike confirmed the problem was a defect in a single content update and assured that the issue is not a cyberattack. While a fix has been deployed, recovery is ongoing.
Affected sectors include major airlines, with Porter Airlines canceling all flights until at least 3 p.m. and several U.S. airlines experiencing significant delays. Healthcare systems in Canada and internationally also faced disruptions.
Despite the recovery efforts, experts highlighted the outage’s demonstration of the fragility of global internet infrastructure. Ciaran Martin from Oxford University described the scale of the outage as unprecedented.
CrowdStrike, which serves over 20,000 clients globally, is working to ensure all systems are fully restored. However, the residual impact continues to affect numerous services, including Microsoft 365 apps and other major online platforms.