Air travel, banking, media and hospital systems are just some of the industries impacted by a bug in a software update that disrupted business operations for many around the world on Friday morning.
Many Microsoft Windows users may have experienced the “blue screen of death” or error page. The issue is caused by a bug in a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which provides antivirus software to Microsoft users.
The company issued a software update overnight, and at 1:30 a.m. EST, CrowdStrike said the “Falcon Sensor” software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, Reuters reported.
CrowdStrike President and CEO George Kurtz released a statement Friday morning at X, stating that the incident was not a security issue or a cyberattack. He added that the issue had been identified and the company had implemented a fix.
“We refer customers to the support portal for the most up-to-date information and will continue to provide comprehensive and ongoing updates on our website,” Kurtz said.
The bug caused delays and cancellations at airports around the world. Flight tracking data site FlightAware recorded nearly 24,000 delays and 2,300 cancellations worldwide as of 9:30 a.m. Friday. While some airlines have been able to resume operating their digital systems, others are looking to analog workarounds in the meantime.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said it was monitoring the situation and advised those experiencing travel delays and cancellations to use the FlightRights.gov website to help address their travel delays.
911 and non-emergency phone lines in several states were experiencing problems, including Alaska, Virginia and New Jersey.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy released a statement Friday morning saying the state had activated the State Emergency Operations Center in response to the outage and had provided guidance to other agencies on how to address the situation.
“We are also engaging with state and local governments, 911 call centers, and utility companies to assess the impact and offer our assistance,” he said.
Microsoft released a troubleshooting guide on Friday morning.
By 10 a.m. Friday, some global companies were seeing improvements in their outages. Downdetector, which tracks live outages, showed companies like Visa, Zoom, UPS and Southwest Airlines were getting back to more normal operations than they had in the early hours.
Speaking to Today hosts this morning, Kurtz said he was “deeply sorry for the impact we’ve had on our customers, travelers and everyone else affected.” He said some customers have been able to reboot and see progress in accessing the internet, and that trend is likely to continue throughout the day.
