Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike told NBC that its update caused a major outage on Friday that affected businesses around the world.
CrowdStrike said it is currently rolling back the update that caused the issue.
The confirmation comes after widespread reports of technical issues around the world.
Microsoft said on Friday that its cloud services have mostly been restored after an outage affecting its cloud apps in the U.S. It is unclear whether the outage was related to the CrowdStrike update.
Separately, however, the CrowdStrike update issue appears to have directly affected Windows systems around the world, with laptops experiencing an error screen known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”
“CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor,” CrowdStrike said in a recorded phone message.
A number of companies, including airlines, broadcasters, telecommunications companies and banks, reported problems on Friday, but the cause of each issue was not immediately clear.
The London Stock Exchange said technical issues with its RNS news service were being investigated, while Sky News, owned by CNBC parent Comcast, temporarily took its broadcasts off the air on Friday morning.
Meanwhile, airports around the world reported delays due to technical issues, with some planes being grounded. Spain’s airports authority AENA warned travellers on Friday that a “computer system incident” could cause delays, while British airline Ryanair said a third-party IT outage was causing disruptions. The airline advised passengers to arrive at airports at least three hours before their scheduled departure.
Australian telecommunications company Telstra said some of its systems were being disrupted by global issues affecting CrowdStrike and Microsoft. “This issue is causing inconvenience to some of our customers and we thank them for their patience,” a company spokesman said.
NBCUniversal was also affected by the CrowdStrike outage.
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