Crowdstrike said it had rolled out a fix for the IT outage
Businesses and services around the world are slowly recovering after a massive IT outage affected computer systems worldwide on Friday. Experts, however, said getting them back online would take time.
Here are 10 points on the big story
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Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were thrown into turmoil for hours by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years, caused by an update to an antivirus program.
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The breakdown was caused by a malfunctioning software update fed to Microsoft Windows users by CrowdStrike, which specializes in cybersecurity for cloud-based companies.
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The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Windows platform. When they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”
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In India, several airports issued handwritten boarding passes to passengers. Many IndiGo flights in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Hyderabad airports were cancelled and rescheduled. Airlines today said departures and arrivals were gradually resuming, but delays are expected even now.
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Media companies were also struggling, with Britain’s Sky News saying the glitch had ended its morning news broadcasts and Australia’s ABC similarly reporting major difficulties.
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CrowdStrike said it had rolled out a fix for the problem and the firm’s boss, George Kurtz said in a statement his teams were “fully mobilised” to help affected customers. Kurtz, however, said it could be “some time” before all systems are back up and running
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The global nature of the software failure prompted some commentators to question the reliance on a single provider for such a variety of services.
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Security experts said CrowdStrike’s routine update of its widely used cybersecurity software, which caused clients’ computer systems to crash globally on Friday, apparently did not undergo adequate quality checks before it was deployed.
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Microsoft said in a statement it was taking “mitigation actions” in response to service issues.
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CrowdStrike – which previously reached a market cap of about $83 billion – is a major cybersecurity provider, with close to 30,000 subscribers globally. Over half of Fortune 500 companies and many government bodies such as the top US cybersecurity agency use the company’s software.
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