Major Microsoft Windows Outage Disrupts PCs and Grounds Flights Globally

An update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike triggered a massive Microsoft Windows outage early Friday morning, causing widespread disruption to businesses and services worldwide.

The update led to Windows PCs experiencing the infamous "blue screen of death" (BSoD), affecting Microsoft systems and services.

According to Downdetector, issues began surfacing around 6:30 p.m. ET on Thursday. Microsoft acknowledged service disruptions by 7:40 p.m. ET, stating it was rerouting traffic to mitigate the impact. By 4 a.m. ET, improvements were reported.

Microsoft's Azure cloud service was notably impacted. "We have identified an issue affecting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server with the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, resulting in BSoD and restart loops," read a status update from Microsoft.

The outage had significant repercussions for the airline industry. Carriers such as Southwest, Frontier, American Airlines, Delta, and United Airlines faced system failures, leading to approximately 1,400 flight cancellations, as reported by the BBC. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed that several airlines requested assistance with ground stops due to the IT issues.

CrowdStrike quickly retracted the problematic update. Microsoft advised users experiencing ongoing issues to contact CrowdStrike for support. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz assured users that the company is actively working on a resolution and clarified that Mac and Linux systems were unaffected. "This was not a security incident or cyberattack but a defect in a single update," Kurtz stated.

Additionally, Azure's issues disrupted various Microsoft 365 services, including Microsoft Defender, OneNote, OneDrive, and Teams. While most of these services were restored, some users continued to experience issues with Teams.

Tony Law, IT Infrastructure Manager at CovertSwarm, suggested that the Microsoft 365 outage might have been self-inflicted and unrelated to the CrowdStrike incident. He emphasized the importance of thoroughly testing software changes in pre-production environments to prevent similar disruptions in the future.