What is CrowdStrike? How a cybersecurity update caused a global tech outage

A global tech outage has grounded airlines, knocked news channels off the air, brought banks offline and interfered with 911 operators as workers around the world woke up on Friday and found they couldn’t boot up their computers.

The reason for the outage is a single software update originating from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The faulty update has caused some computers running Windows to experience the Blue Screen of Death. In other words, instead of booting up as normal, affected computers are crashing. The update did not impact computers running Mac or Linux.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” wrote CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz in an X post Friday morning. “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has 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. 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) <a href=«https://twitter.com/George_Kurtz/status/1814235001745027317?ref_src=» https:>July 19, 2024

While Kurtz said that a fix has been deployed for the bug, it doesn’t look like the outage will be resolved soon.

“It could be some time for some systems that won’t automatically recover, but it is our mission to make sure every customer is fully recovered,” Kurtz said in an interview with on NBC’s Today Show.

Kurtz also apologized for the outage: “We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused.”

For those unfamiliar with CrowdStrike, it may come as quite a