A global tech outage linked to a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected nearly 8.5 million Microsoft devices, Microsoft revealed in a blog post on Saturday, July 21.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices or less than one per cent of all Windows machines,” the company stated in the blog.
The software update from CrowdStrike, a leading global cybersecurity firm, caused system issues that led to flight disruptions, interrupted broadcast services, and left consumers without access to essential services such as healthcare and banking.
“While the percentage of affected devices was small, the extensive economic and societal impacts highlight CrowdStrike’s prominence among enterprises running critical services,” noted Microsoft’s blog post.
Microsoft mentioned that CrowdStrike has developed a solution to help expedite a fix for Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure. Additionally, Microsoft is collaborating with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, sharing information on the broader industry impact.
The air travel industry has been gradually recovering from the outage, which resulted in the cancellation of thousands of flights, leaving passengers stranded or facing long delays. Airports and airlines were significantly affected by the IT disruption.
Delta Air Lines, one of the most affected carriers, said over 600 flights had been cancelled by 10 am on Saturday, July 21, with more cancellations anticipated.
