Photo by CNN

 

Companies across the world reported disruptions, citing technical issues from a cybersecurity software update.

Here’s what to know about the outages:

Global Disruptions

On Friday, industries worldwide, including airlines, healthcare, and banks, faced significant disruptions due to a global technology outage. The issue, stemming from a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, affected numerous sectors, from package delivery services to courthouses, demonstrating the global economy’s vulnerability to software dependencies.

Cause of the Outage

The disruptions were caused by a CrowdStrike software update that led to crashes in machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system. George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s CEO, clarified that this was not a security breach or cyberattack but rather a technical issue. Although a fix has been deployed, Kurtz noted that full implementation would take some time.

“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused,” Mr. Kurtz said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Impact on Various Sectors

Airlines: U.S. airlines began to restore services on Friday morning. Airlines such as Allegiant Air, American, Delta, Spirit, and United had grounded all flights temporarily. Over 1,500 flights across the U.S. were canceled. The impact was also felt globally, with disruptions reported in Hong Kong, Sydney, Berlin, and Amsterdam. In Britain, check-in machines were down.

Basic Services: Both UPS and FedEx experienced disruptions, potentially affecting deliveries in the U.S. and Europe. TD Bank customers reported issues accessing online accounts, and several state and municipal courts in the U.S. closed for the day due to the outage.

Healthcare: The outage severely impacted healthcare systems worldwide, causing hospitals to cancel non-critical surgeries and complicating emergency responses. In the U.S., 911 lines were down in multiple states, though most issues were resolving by mid-morning.

Federal Response

President Biden was briefed on the CrowdStrike outage, with White House officials stating they were in contact with CrowdStrike and affected entities, and were coordinating across agencies to provide updates for different sectors.

Minimal Impact on Some Services

Certain essential services, such as major grocery store chains and public transit systems, remained largely unaffected in the U.S. Both Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud reported that their services were mostly operating normally, unlike Microsoft Azure, which was impacted by the outage.

This incident underscores the delicate balance of our interconnected world and the far-reaching effects a single software issue can have across multiple industries and services.

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Recent global tech outages have shown how vulnerable businesses can be. Companies worldwide faced severe disruptions due to a software issue.

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