Chicago – July 24, 2024
Services from airlines to healthcare, shipping and finance were coming back online on Friday after a mistake in a security software update sparked hours-long global computer systems outages, another incident highlighting the vulnerability of the world’s interconnected technologies.
After the outage was resolved, companies were dealing with backlogs of delayed and canceled flights and medical appointments, missed orders and other issues that could take days to resolve. Businesses also face questions about how to avoid future blackouts triggered by technology meant to safeguard their systems.
A software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), opens new tab, one of the largest operators in the industry, triggered systems problems that grounded flights, forced broadcasters off air and left customers without access to services such as healthcare or banking. Global shipper FedEx (FDX.N), opens new tab faced major disruptionsand some moderators who police content on Meta’s Facebook were hit.
CrowdStrike is not a household name but it is an $83 billion company with more than 20,000 subscribers around the world including Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new taband Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on social media platform X that a defect was found “in a single content update for Windows hosts” that affected Microsoft customers.
President Joe Biden was briefed on the outage, a White House official said. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it observed hackers using the outage for phishing and other malicious activities.
