The famous ‘Blue Screen of Death’ appeared in airports, banks, emergency services and the media after the largest computer blackout in history. For several hours, the world practically stopped working.
The CrowdStrike Crash Cause
The cause of the outages is due to a software update for Microsoft Windows operating systems created by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. At the moment, according to the company, the situation is already under control.
Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike says global tech outage that grounded flights was “not a security incident or cyberattack” and a fix has been deployed.
Follow live updates. https://t.co/ihmy3rHFpR
— CNN (@CNN) July 19, 2024
911 emergency services collapsed in several countries and major airlines canceled and delayed hundreds of flights. The phenomenon was reproduced in the United States, Mexico and in airports in Europe and Asia. In fact, with a historical fact, the way of boarding the flights was practically manual with the airline staff writing down in pen the seat number that corresponded to each of the passengers.
CrowdStrike’s CEO said a fix has already been implemented. Minutes later, Microsoft reported that the underlying cause “has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed”, but that the outages are still affecting some services.
Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.
We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
Airports Chaos
As a result of the computer outage, most airlines posted a message when screens returned to normal. American Airlines posted the following “Earlier this morning, a technical issue with a vendor impacted multiple carriers, including American. As of 5:00 a.m. ET, we have been able to safely re-establish our operation. We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
