CrowdStrike Outage Wreaks Havoc; Firm Rebuts Delta

CrowdStrike, a major cybersecurity firm, released an update to its widely-used antivirus software for Microsoft Windows that caused computers worldwide to crash, creating issues for airlines, hospitals, and broadcasters, among other industries.

The software that resulted in the outage was released early in the morning on July 18. Microsoft estimates that it impacted more than 8.5 million Windows devices, which amounts to less than 1% of all Windows machines.

Although a relatively low percentage of machines were impacted, the outage was felt the world over. Some of the worst-affected entities were airlines. Thousands of flights were delayed or canceled, and airline agents were left with little ability to support stranded travelers. The impacts were also felt in shipping and logistics, with delays plaguing rail operator Union Pacific, shipping companies FedEx and UPS, and the Port of Houston.

Several prominent finance or trading platforms were disrupted, including the London Stock Exchange’s analytics service. The Starbucks app’s order-ahead and payment feature was also briefly unavailable.

Some emergency services were affected, including two US nonprofit hospital operators – one of which canceled all non-urgent surgeries for a day. Several hospitals in the Netherlands also reduced their operations. In England, the National Health Service’s booking system was interrupted, but emergency services were unaffected.

The outage even slowed preparations for the Paris Olympics, though organizers said they have been able to cope and keep everything on track.

CrowdStrike has confirmed that the issue was not a result of a hack and is carrying out an internal investigation to identify what actions need to be taken to avoid a similar incident in the future. Immediately following the incident, CrowdStrike shares dropped by 13%.

In early August, CrowdStrike rebutted public complaints by Delta Air Lines, one of the worst-fairing airlines of the outage. Delta, which canceled about 30% of its flights over five days, said it lost $500 million because of the incident and has floated a potential lawsuit.

CrowdStrike said its CEO personally contacted Delta’s CEO to help during the outage, but the assistance was refused. The cybersecurity firm noted Delta would need to explain why it suffered more during the outage than other US airlines.