What happened?
On July 19 2024, there was a significant IT disruption caused by a faulty software update to the Crowdstrike Falcon Sensor for Windows systems. The update led to widespread system crashes and the "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD), affecting numerous sectors globally, including major airlines, banks, and media outlets. The incident grounded approximately 1,500 flights in the United States, disrupted banking transactions, and caused various media services to go offline. CrowdStrike quickly identified the issue as a logic error in the update and remediated it within hours, confirming that the outage was not due to a cyberattack.
This is one of the most substantial IT Outages in history
The outage affected approximately 8.5 million Windows devices globally. This incident, attributed to a faulty software update, is one of the most substantial IT outages in history, with far-reaching implications across various sectors.
According to Microsoft, the affected devices represent less than 1% of all Windows machines worldwide. However, the disruption caused substantial economic and operational challenges across multiple industries, including businesses, banks, hospitals, and airlines.
According to Cloud Outage insurance company Parametrix reported that the total loss for Fortune 500 companies sum up to $5.4 billion.
Other IT outages in history includes:
-
AWS Outage (November 2020): Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a major outage in its US-East-1 region.
Impact: The outage disrupted numerous online services and applications that rely on AWS, affecting thousands of businesses and users globally.
Cause: An issue with the Kinesis data streaming service caused a cascading failure across various AWS services. -
Facebook Outage (October 2021): Facebook, along with its services Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, went offline for several hours.
Impact: Billions of users worldwide were unable to access these services, causing widespread disruption to personal and business communications.
Cause: Configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between Facebook’s data centers caused disruptions in communication. -
Google Outage (December 2020): Google services, including Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, and Google Meet, went down globally.
Impact: Millions of users were affected, with significant disruptions to businesses and educational activities relying on Google services.
Cause: An internal storage quota issue caused Google's authentication system to fail. -
Fastly CDN Outage (June 2021): A configuration error at Fastly, a major content delivery network (CDN), caused a global internet outage.
Impact: Major websites, including Amazon, Reddit, and The New York Times, were temporarily inaccessible.
Cause: A bug in a software deployment triggered the outage when a specific configuration was applied. -
Microsoft Azure Outage (September 2020): Microsoft's Azure cloud service experienced a significant outage affecting multiple regions.
Impact: Numerous applications and services that rely on Azure were disrupted, affecting businesses and users.
Cause: An underlying temperature issue in one of the data centers led to a cascading failure.
Crowdstrike stock went down up to 23%
Following the outage, CrowdStrike's shares (CRWD) plummeted by up to 23% by Tuesday, March 23rd, compared to their closing price the Friday before the event. This drop reflects the significant impact and investor concerns over the stability and reliability of the company's services.
Google reported a spike on the search for "Crowdstrike competitors".
Airlines and airports were affected globally
More than 1500 flights were cancelled in the United States and over 1000 delayed. According to Flightaware, Delta was still one of the most affected airlines with 36% canceled and 45% delayed. While Hardsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta had 30% of its flights cancelled and 42% delayed.
It is reported that all 6 airlines ranked on Fortune 500 ranking were affected for the outage.
As per Ed Bastian, Delta's CEO, the IT outage caused costs that raised to $500 million dollars.
Workforce Data company Livedata Technologies published a chart suggesting that Delta didn't have resolved its operations 72 hours later after the outage, with a high correlation of the understaffing of their IT department, showing a 0.5% decrease in headcount compared to July 2023, different with other competing airlines United (9.1%), Southwest (6.4%) and American Airlines (3.5%).
Banks were also affected
- Most major American banks reported operational stability. However, some online brokers and trading platforms faced issues.
- The New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange remained operational, with minor issues in the latter’s news service.
- Banks in South Africa and Brazil experienced payment and digital service issues, respectively.
- 76% of Fortune 500 companies in the Banking industry were affected.
30% of McDonald's stores were closed in Japan
- In Japan, approximately 30% of McDonald's stores were closed due to system breakdowns, affecting around 2,900 locations.
- Starbucks app users reported difficulties with mobile ordering and app functionality.
- Self-service kiosks at Chicago's O'Hare Airport malfunctioned, illustrating the outage's impact on various industries.
- 43% of all Fortune 500 companies of the Retail industry were affected.
911 services were disrupted in Alaksa
- In Alaska and Ohio, 911 services were disrupted overnight, with service in Alaska restored by 4:30 a.m. on Friday.
- Hospitals in Germany canceled non-emergency operations due to system failures.
- Live television broadcasts in France and Australia were interrupted, with Sky News in the U.K. also experiencing outages.
- 75% of Fortune 500 companies in the Health industry were affected.
No, Southwest Airlines is not running on Windows 3.1
During the outage, a fake news story claimed that Southwest Airlines remained unaffected due to using outdated operating systems like Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. This misinformation originated from a joke tweet that was widely misinterpreted and spread without proper verification. This incident underscores the importance of responsible reporting and fact-checking to avoid propagating false information.
Microsoft launched a Recovery Tool for the Crowdstrike Issue
Administrators were recommended to do an audit for Crowdstrike installations.
Microsoft quickly released a Crowdstrike recovery tool to solve the issue in all computers.
Also, Crowdstrike launched a Remediation and Guidance Hub to provide updates on the issue.
On July 24th, Crowdstrike sent $10 Ubear Eats gift certificates to customers as an apology for the outage.
