Major outages at CrowdStrike, Microsoft leave the world with BSODs and confusion

Enlarge / A passenger sits on the floor as long queues form at the check-in counters at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, on July 19, 2024 in Manila, Philippines. (credit: Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)

Millions of people outside the IT industry are learning what CrowdStrike is today, and that's a real bad thing. Meanwhile, Microsoft is also catching blame for global network outages, and between the two, it's unclear as of Friday morning just who caused what.

After cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike shipped an update to its Falcon Sensor software that protects mission critical systems, Blue Screens of Death started taking down Windows-based systems. The problems started in Australia and followed the dateline from there. TV networks, 911 call centers, and even the Paris Olympics were affected. Banks and financial systems in India, South Africa, Thailand, and other countries fell as computers suddenly crashed. Some individual workers discovered that their work-issued laptops were booting to blue screens on Friday morning.

Airlines, never the most agile of networks, were particularly hard-hit, with American Airlines, United, Delta, and Frontier among the US airlines overwhelmed Friday morning.