Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage: In an worldwide IT outage of epic proportions from CrowdStrike Holdings following the cybersecurity company’s software update for Microsoft Windows, systems critical to various sectors crashed for hours on July 19.
Both companies announced that patches were launched to iron out the issues and systems were slowly restored, but not before widescale interruptions in key sectors such as healthcare, banking, and travel.
Challenges Abound
Bloomberg reported “bankers in Hong Kong, doctors in the UK and emergency responders in New Hampshire” were locked out of critical programs which affected operations. Speaking to the publication, Alan Woodward, professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said, “This is unprecedented. The economic impact is going to be huge.”
According to the “fix” suggested by CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, offices were required to reboot their Windows systems and remove bad files in a manual, time-consuming process. IT professions, especially those tasked with remote systems were stuck with systems that kept crashing and a process that requires administrative permissions to be completed.
This is notably, the biggest such outage since Amazon experienced cloud errors in 2017, affecting thousands of websites, and content delivery platform Fastly took down media networks in 2021.
So, what were the sectors most impacted and what is the status now? We take a look. Notably, most impacted companies and sector have been brought online by late Friday (US time).
Corporations
- Companies such as FedEx and Meta’s Facebook were also hit, as per Reuters. FedEx saw disruptions in shipments while content moderators on Facebook faced difficulties, it added.
- A major container hub in the Baltic port of Gdansk, Poland, said it was battling problems, AP reported.
- Twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, marine terminals were affected, while albiet facing minor disruptions, AP reported.
- American Express told AP it temporarily had some difficulties processing transactions.
- At Starbucks outlets, customers experienced “minor inconveniences” such as long lines due to trouble ordering, the AP report said.
(With inputs from Bloomberg, Reuters and AP)