CrowdStrike impact: How a global IT outage unraveled the world's tech

If your flight was canceled, your medical procedure rescheduled, or you woke up to find the blue screen of death on your PC, you’re already aware of the massive tech outage that swept across the globe early Friday.

A software security update gone awry caused a breakdown of computer systems around the world, affecting commercial flights, hospital operations, financial services, and media broadcasts.

Learn more: How outage affected businesses.

The software update came from CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity firm that says it's used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies. The update contained a defect that affected Microsoft's Windows Operating System, the company said. Mac and Linux users are not affected.

The outage was "not a security incident or cyberattack," the company said, adding that engineers are working with customers on fixes.

Where did internet disruptions happen?

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CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized for the outages in an interview on the "Today" show Friday morning. He said the software update had a single bug and that "it could take some time for some systems" to recover.

The company is “deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this,” Kurtz said.

Affected areas across the US

How many flights were canceled or delayed?

Outage disrupted Microsoft Store transactions

Separately from the CrowdStrike issue, Microsoft reported earlier difficulty with its Microsoft 365 apps and Azure cloud system, its business-related public computing platform used for data storage, networking and analytics.

The problem started in the central U.S. region around 6 p.m. Thursday, Microsoft said. Services were restored before midnight.

Source: Paste BN Network reporting and research; Reuters; crowdstrike.com; techtarget.com