CrowdStrike issue causes major outage affecting businesses around the world (2024)

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An update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to a major IT outage on Friday, impacting businesses around the world.

CrowdStrike told NBC that it is in the process of rolling back the update that caused the issue, and later said a fix for the defect had been deployed.

"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," CEO George Kurtz said in a statement on X .

"This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed."

He added that customers should refer to the support portal for the latest updates and work with their CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.

Kurtz apologized to those impacted in an interview on the NBC program "TODAY" early Friday.

"I want to start by saying we're deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our company," he said.

"The system was sent an update, and that update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system. And now we are working with each and every customer to make sure that we can bring them back online."

Kurtz added that the update was normal and part of the company's routine process to prevent security risks, but noted that an investigation would be required to see what went wrong.

The confirmation came after widespread reports of technical issues, with many Microsoft users around the world facing an error screen known as the "blue screen of death ."

CrowdStrike shares were down about 11% on Friday, while Microsoft was little changed.

CrowdStrike issue causes major outage affecting businesses around the world (2)

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Watch CNBC's full interview with CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz

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'A major outage'

Airlines, hospitals and financial services firms were among the many businesses affected.

American Airlines , which describes itself as the world's largest, said a technology issue was affecting "multiple carriers" including American, while the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM said it had been "forced to suspend most" of its operations.

In Great Britain, the Royal Surrey hospital declared a "critical incident" and had to temporarily suspend radiography treatment. The National Health Service in England, meanwhile, said it was experiencing disruptions in the majority of doctors' practices.

Banks and financial companies around the world have reported issues, with German insurance giant Allianz saying it was "experiencing a major outage that is impacting employees' ability to log into their computers. It impacts multiple companies besides Allianz."

NBCUniversal is also being affected by the CrowdStrike outage.

See the latest updates on which companies are affected here.

'unprecedented'

Satnam Narang, senior staff researcher at Tenable, told CNBC on Friday that the outage was having a "profound impact" and was unique in its size and scope.

"The challenge here is that security software — because it's doing its job to protect organizations — it has to have more privileged access to these machines," he said.

"So ... while people may be seeing these as Windows failures, they're looking at it and seeing a little blue screen pop up, it's not actually a Windows issue, it's related to a faulty or bad update from those security software. "

Narang added, "We've never seen anything like this before, it's very unprecedented."

Omer Grossman, CIO at cybersecurity firm CyberArk, said the damage caused by this outage will be "dramatic."

"The glitch is due to a software update of CrowdStrike's EDR product. This is a product that runs with high privileges that protects endpoints. A malfunction in this can, as we are seeing in the current incident, cause the operating system to crash," he said in an emailed comment.

Getting back online is unlikely to be easy, according to Grossman.

"It turns out that because the endpoints have crashed - the Blue Screen of Death - they cannot be updated remotely and this the problem must be solved manually, endpoint by endpoint. This is expected to be a process that will take days," he added .

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC and CNBC.

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CrowdStrike issue causes major outage affecting businesses around the world (2024)

FAQs

CrowdStrike issue causes major outage affecting businesses around the world? ›

An update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike led to a major IT outage on Friday, impacting businesses around the world. CrowdStrike told NBC that it is in the process of rolling back the update that caused the issue, and later said a fix for the defect had been deployed.

What was affected by CrowdStrike outage? ›

The historic outage was the result of a faulty update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that affected millions of computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Laura DeNardis is a professor and endowed Chair in Technology, Ethics, and Society and the director of the Center for Digital Ethics.

What was impacted by CrowdStrike? ›

Businesses, banks, hospitals and airlines were among the worst-hit, with some still struggling to fully restore their systems. "We understand the profound impact this has had on everyone. We know our customers, partners and their IT teams are working tirelessly and we're profoundly grateful," CrowdStrike said.

What caused the global outage? ›

Last week's global tech outage has been traced back to a bug in U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike's quality control system. The outage's impacts have been far-reaching, affecting roughly 8.5 million Windows devices and disrupting banks, emergency call centers and airlines.

What is the cause of the global tech outage? ›

A massive outage was caused by what was supposed to be a routine update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. A routine software update caused cascading chaos Friday that has engulfed global businesses from airports and banks to retail and law enforcement.

Why is CrowdStrike falling? ›

Shares of CrowdStrike (CRWD) are still falling after a faulty update caused a global outage on Friday, sending the cybersecurity firm's shares plummeting, but some investors—including Cathie Wood's ARK Invest—are trying to buy the dip.

Does the US government use CrowdStrike? ›

The extent of the impact on federal government operations is still not known. Crowdstrike is in wide use across federal agencies and it is a key vendor on the governmentwide Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation cybersecurity support services contract.

What computers were affected by CrowdStrike? ›

The CrowdStrike issue hit 8.5 million computers running Windows on Friday, July 19, and repercussions are still being felt. But if the person at the next desk was using a Mac, they were blithely unaffected. Here's why that is, and what Microsoft said contributed to the issue in the first place.

What big companies use CrowdStrike? ›

Customers of Crowdstrike
CustomersEmployee RangeCountry
Amazon Web Services10,000+United States
Home Depot, Inc.10,000+United States
OSI Group LLC10,000+United States
iQor10,000+United States
6 more rows

What was the global IT outage? ›

The disruption was caused by a flawed update to a cloud-based security software of CrowdStrike, one of the global top cybersecurity companies. The update to the Falcon software triggered a malfunction that disabled parts of the computer systems and software like Microsoft Windows.

How much did the CrowdStrike outage cost? ›

The massive CrowdStrike outage that affected millions of Microsoft devices is predicted to cost U.S. Fortune 500 companies $5.4 billion in total direct financial loss, with an average loss of $44 million per Fortune 500 company, according to new data from cloud monitoring and insurance firm Parametrix.

Is Southwest Airlines affected by CrowdStrike? ›

Some airlines, including Southwest and Alaska, do not use CrowdStrike, the provider of cybersecurity software whose faulty upgrade to Microsoft Windows triggered the outages. Those carriers saw relatively few cancellations.

Is Alaska airlines affected by CrowdStrike? ›

Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.

What is the reason for CrowdStrike outage? ›

SAN FRANCISCO, July 19 (Reuters) - Security experts said CrowdStrike's (CRWD.O) , opens new tab routine update of its widely used cybersecurity software, which caused clients' computer systems to crash globally on Friday, apparently did not undergo adequate quality checks before it was deployed.

Did CrowdStrike cause Microsoft outage? ›

Was the Microsoft outage caused by CrowdStrike? Yes, the global outage experienced by Microsoft on Thursday was triggered by an issue with CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software. This problem led to widespread disruptions and caused the 'Blue Screen of Death' to appear on Windows PCs.

Is United affected by CrowdStrike? ›

The CrowdStrike bug hit United's systems hard, leading the airline to cancel 694 flights Friday. IT outages grounded an additional 713 United planes during the weekend, which Kirby characterized as one of the busiest travel times of the year.

What is the importance of CrowdStrike? ›

CrowdStrike — the CDR pioneer

Accelerate mean time to respond by 89% with leading cloud detection and response (CDR) that unifies elite 24/7 managed services and world-class threat intelligence with the industry's most complete cloud security platform to stop breaches.

What problems does CrowdStrike solve? ›

CrowdStrike is the leader in next-generation endpoint protection, threat intelligence and response services. CrowdStrike's core technology, the Falcon platform, stops breaches by preventing and responding to all types of attacks — both malware and malware-free.

Is CrowdStrike laying off employees? ›

CrowdStrike layoffs

No significant layoffs have been reported.

What is CrowdStrike incident response? ›

CrowdStrike delivers incident response and forensic analysis services that are designed to help your organization understand whether or not a breach has occurred, and to respond and recover from a breach with speed and precision to remediate the threat.

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