Global outages of home Windows PCs have brought various industries including airlines, major banks, television broadcasters, healthcare providers, and other businesses to a grinding halt. Airlines including United Airlines, Delta, and American Airlines were forced to ground and delay flights, leaving passengers stranded at airports, while the UK’s Sky News was temporarily taken off the air.
A widespread outage has left banking clients in Europe, Australia, and India unable to access their online accounts, while merchants are struggling to operate normally.
What triggered it? A critical issue arises due to a faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike, causing affected servers and PCs to go dark and triggering Windows workstations to display infamous “blue screens of death” when users attempt to start their machines. Mac and Linux hosts remain unaffected.
CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, confirmed that the company is closely collaborating with affected clients to address the Windows host vulnerability stemming from a solitary content material update.
“This isn’t a safety incident or cyberattack,” he said bluntly during his discussion on X. “The issue has been acknowledged, isolated, and a fix has been implemented.” Clients are referred to the Assist Portal for timely access to the latest information, ensuring seamless communication as we provide regular and comprehensive website updates.
Despite this effort not directly aiding compromised computer systems, it may still prove essential for corporate IT teams to implement a manual workaround, as CrowdStrike has distributed to its customers this morning, according to reports.
This August, a rare phenomenon is expected to occur over Colorado as unusually large balloons are forecasted to float high above the state. Equipped with advanced sensors, these high-flying platforms can detect subtle changes in temperature at altitude, allowing them to accurately identify and track new wildfire ignitions from afar.
