A recent software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has caused outage, affecting approximately 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide.
Microsoft revealed the scope of the issue on Saturday, noting the wide-reaching impacts on various economic sectors.
David Weston, Microsoft’s Vice President of Enterprise and OS Security, stated in a blog post that the update caused Windows machines to crash, disrupting critical services across multiple industries. Mac and Linux devices remained unaffected by the outage.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services,” Weston explained. The 8.5 million affected devices represent less than one percent of all Windows machines globally.
The outage, which began on Friday, had a particularly severe impact on the aviation industry. According to flight status information aggregator Cirium, at least 2,691 out of 110,000 commercial flights scheduled on Friday were canceled worldwide due to the glitch. The incident caused widespread delays and cancellations at airports globally, significantly disrupting travel plans and economic activities.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz issued a public apology, acknowledging the gravity of the situation. “I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for today’s outage. All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority,” Kurtz said.
Microsoft emphasized that while software updates may occasionally cause disturbances, significant incidents like the CrowdStrike event are infrequent. The company assured users that measures are being taken to prevent such occurrences in the future.
