On Friday, a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused widespread technological havoc, grounding flights, disrupting financial companies and news outlets, and affecting hospitals, small businesses, and government offices worldwide, reports the Associated Press.
The breadth of the outages identified the fragility of a digitized world heavily reliant on a few key providers for essential computing services. The incident was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and assured that a fix was underway.
Businesses and governments globally faced hours-long disruptions, with computer monitors displaying blue error messages. They scrambled to deal with the fallout, and CrowdStrike’s CEO acknowledged that some systems would require time-consuming manual fixes.
Thousands of flights were canceled, and tens of thousands more were delayed, leading to long lines at airports in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America. By late afternoon Eastern time, the worst seemed to be over, although lingering cancellations and delays continued due to the cascading effect of the disruption.
Several local TV stations in the U.S. were unable to broadcast news early Friday, and various state and local government services, including courts, motor vehicles departments, unemployment agencies, and emergency call centers, reported problems. However, many systems were returning to normal as the day progressed.
Hospitals experienced issues with appointment systems, forcing them to suspend patient visits and cancel surgeries. Alison Baulos shared that her 73-year-old father’s heart surgery in Paducah, Kentucky, was canceled due to the outage, leaving her family scared and worried.
“It really makes you realize how much we rely on technology and how scary it is,” Baulos said.
American Express faced temporary difficulties processing transactions, and TD Bank worked to restore customers’ access to their accounts. Minor inconveniences included trouble ordering ahead at Starbucks, leading to long lines at some stores.
In New York City’s Times Square, several giant electronic billboards displayed blue “recovery” screens. Cyber expert James Bore highlighted the incident as a disturbing reminder of vulnerability in widespread systems.
“All of these systems are running the same software. We’ve made these tools so widespread that when things inevitably go wrong, they go wrong at a huge scale,” Bore said.
CrowdStrike’s CEO George Kurtz apologized for the impact and assured that the issue was identified and a fix was in progress. However, he noted that it could take “some time” for certain customers, particularly those lacking in-house expertise.
Shares of CrowdStrike fell more than 11% by the end of Friday trading, while Microsoft’s stock price dropped less than 1%. Despite the widespread impact, the forecasting firm Capital Economics indicated that the outage was unlikely to significantly affect the global economy.
Cybersecurity experts cautioned that affected organizations should be wary of bad actors exploiting the situation. “Attackers will definitely prey on organizations as a result of this,” said Gartner analyst Eric Grenier.
In Australia, national news outlets, including ABC and Sky News Australia, were unable to broadcast for hours. Hospitals worldwide reported issues, with Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts canceling all non-urgent surgeries and medical visits.
International shipping experienced disruptions, with major container hubs in Poland and marine terminals at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach affected.
