A major global IT outage was reported on Friday as thousands of businesses have to halt operations when their Windows computers suddenly displayed the notorious "blue screen of death."
The cause of the outage: an antivirus update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike. An update bug that basically bricked most of the IT infrastructures in the world.
While CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz assured partnered firms and customers that the outage was not due to a "cybersecurity incident," the scale of the impact could as well be.
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) July 19, 2024
Here are some reasons why:
Billions of Dollar in Losses
For one, the CrowdStrike IT outage is unique in the way that the update bug can only be removed manually from each computer.
While the fix may be simple, the overwhelming amount of computers that needed the repair would require a huge number of IT staff working around the clock before their services stabilized.
Big tech companies have to wait a little longer as they would still need to install proper cybersecurity software, which CrowdStrike is supposed to provide, before returning online.
All of these culminate in halted operations that could cost several industries millions if not billions, of dollars before CrowdStrike could roll out the technical update to resolve the issue permanently.
Lives at Danger
Businesses are not the only infrastructures affected by the outage. In fact, many hospitals and medical facilities also rely on CrowdStrike's cybersecurity services amid the surge of cyberattacks on the healthcare sector.
Earlier service outages have already shown the gravity of a service disruption in medical responses as major operations have to be rescheduled, patients being transferred to other hospitals, and multiple delays across almost every service.
Transportation Delays
Airports are one of the biggest customers in IT services. They are also among the most impacted by the recent CrowdStrike outage.
Several airlines have already announced flight delays, re-schedules, and even cancelations as customers scramble to complete their flights soon, hinting at further confusion even after the CrowdStrike bug is resolved over the next few days.
With the Summer Olympics close to full swing, the transportation delay could heavily impact many people's schedules in the coming months, especially those traveling to France and nearby European nations.
