 Multiple blue screens of death caused by a faulty software update on baggage carousels at LaGuardia Airport, New York City | |
| Date | 19 July 2024 |
|---|---|
| Location | Worldwide |
| Type | IT outage, computer crash |
| Cause | Faulty CrowdStrike software update |
| Outcome | ~8.5 million Microsoft Windows operating systems crash worldwide, causing global disruption of critical services |
On 19 July 2024, American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike distributed a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor security software that caused widespread problems with Microsoft Windows computers running the software. As a result, roughly 8.5 million systems crashed and were unable to properly restart[1] in what has been called the largest outage in the history of information technology[2] and "historic in scale".[3]
The outage disrupted daily life, businesses, and governments around the world. Many industries were affected—airlines, airports, banks, hotels, hospitals, manufacturing, stock markets, broadcasting, gas stations, retail stores, and more—as were governmental services, such as emergency services and websites.[4][5] The worldwide financial damage has been estimated to be at least US$10 billion.[6]
Within hours, the error was discovered and a fix was released,[7] but because many affected computers had to be fixed manually,[8] outages continued to linger on many services.[9][10]
- ^ Weston, David (20 July 2024). "Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage". Microsoft. Archived from the original on 23 July 2024. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
- ^ Milmo, Dan; Kollewe, Julia; Quinn, Ben; Taylor, Josh; Ibrahim, Mimi (19 July 2024). "'Largest IT outage in history' hits Microsoft Windows and causes global chaos". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 20 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ Sorkin, Andrew Ross; Mattu, Ravi; Warner, Bernhard; Kessler, Sarah; Merced, Michael J. de la; Hirsch, Lauren; Livni, Ephrat; Gaffney, Austyn (19 July 2024). "Counting the Costs of a Global IT Outage". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
- ^ Godfrey, Paul; Druker, Simon; Wynder, Ehren (19 July 2024). "911 call centers back online after IT outage causes global chaos". United Press International. Archived from the original on 25 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ "Live: 'Completely unprecedented' outage causes havoc with IT systems across globe". ABC News. 19 July 2024. Archived from the original on 20 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ Lian, Kit Wee (22 July 2024). "Here comes the wave of insurance claims for the CrowdStrike outage". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 22 July 2024. Retrieved 25 July 2024.
- ^ "In 1st Statement After Outage, CrowdStrike CEO Says..." NDTV. 19 July 2024. Archived from the original on 25 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ Browne, Ryan (19 July 2024). "How a software update caused one of the world's biggest IT blackouts". CNBC. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ Fung, Brian (19 July 2024). "Recovering from the global tech outage could be a long, arduous process". CNN. Archived from the original on 19 July 2024. Retrieved 20 July 2024.
- ^ Griffin, Andrew (19 July 2024). "Microsoft IT outage live: Travellers still stranded as experts warn problem is likely to happen again". The Independent. Archived from the original on 26 July 2024. Retrieved 26 July 2024.