For Some, Normalcy May Take Weeks

A global tech outage knocked out operations for schools, media companies and emergency services and forced airlines to ground flights.

One update from CrowdStrike, a major provider of cybersecurity software to companies, caused the problems for millions of Microsoft users while laying bare how fragile and interdependent global digital technology is. Windows computers and tablets crashed, touching almost every industry from air travel to government entities to hospitals. The outage touched almost every industry. Multiple financial institutions, government entities and corporations reported tech issues. Some hospitals and school districts said computers were down, and courthouses around the U.S. either closed or delayed trial proceedings. Still, financial markets were largely operating as normal, and many companies said systems were starting to be restored.

That one update from a single provider could plunge so many companies—from airlines’ check-in desks to consultants’ conference rooms—into a digital dark age serves as a fresh warning of the world’s technological dependence. While past outages, like a Google failure in 2020, have also locked millions out of tools they need, companies’ and individuals’ increasing reliance on automated tools powered by artificial intelligence makes each new disruption feel more ominous.

WATCH: 12-hour timelapse of American Airlines, Delta, and United plane traffic after what was likely the biggest IT outage in history forced a nationwide ground stop of the airlines.
pic.twitter.com/ftLFm8D71J

— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) July 19, 2024

Friday’s outage also highlights the tension in relying heavily on centralized tools like those offered by CrowdStrike. On one hand, the fact that so many companies use the tools help make them more effective at detecting and blocking the latest attacks. But it also shows how one bug in one update can just as easily grind parts of the global economy to a halt. 

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. We…

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

Tech issues

George Kurtz

CrowdStrike Chief Executive George Kurtz said in a post on X that the issue had been identified and a fix had been deployed, adding that “this is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

One of CrowdStrike’s main services is called Falcon, which monitors a company’s machines for hacking attempts, viruses and other threats. The Austin-based company has about 29,000 customers and went public in 2019.

CrowdStrike told customers in a status update seen by The Wall Street Journal that the problem was with a software change it had pushed via Falcon out to clients’ computers. The company said its engineers had undone the change but clients would need to use a workaround to download a fix to affected computers.

Some affected users may be back up and running soon, but for others it could take weeks depending on the system in use, said Simo Kohonen, founder of Finland-based network security company Defused. “The fix CrowdStrike has given is quite manual and may be difficult, in some cases, to deploy at large scale,” he said.