A global tech outage caused by a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) affected nearly 8.5 million Microsoft (MSFT.O) devices, according to a blog post by Microsoft on Saturday.
Microsoft reported that the CrowdStrike update impacted approximately 8.5 million Windows devices, which is less than one percent of all Windows machines. Despite this small percentage, the outage had significant economic and societal consequences due to CrowdStrike’s extensive use by enterprises running critical services.
The software issues led to widespread disruptions, including grounded flights, halted broadcasting, and service interruptions in sectors like healthcare and banking.
CrowdStrike has developed a solution to help Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure expedite a fix, and Microsoft is collaborating with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform to address the industry-wide effects.
The air travel industry was still recovering on Saturday from the outage, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and significant delays. Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), one of the most affected airlines, reported over 600 canceled flights as of 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) and anticipated more cancellations.
