A global crash of Windows computers generated by a security update from the software firm CrowdStrike on Thursday night continues wreaking havoc for companies across the U.S. Friday.
Businesses across the U.S. and globe continue struggling to operate after a massive outage of Microsoft software and cloud services left countless owners and employees unable to use their computers — disrupting or entirely freezing activity at myriad enterprises for hours.
Reports of the problem began late Thursday evening with Microsoft users complaining of their computers crashing, then displaying error alerts known as “the blue screen of death” — a sign of critical problems on a Windows PC. As dawn broke on the East Coast Friday, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said the outage was linked to an upgrade it had released and that the “issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
Despite that, millions of users across the U.S. and world remain unable to reboot their computers — though increasing numbers of people on social media have said their PCs have begun operating again.
The scale of the breakdown quickly became evident after initial reports of outages surfaced. The number of company, administration, and government sites listed as offline by monitoring service Downdector.com rapidly surged into the thousands late Thursday and early Friday. Businesses affected included banks, telecoms, TV broadcasters, financial services, Amazon, social media, and airlines and airports — some of which continued canceling flights into early Friday as the disruption persisted.
Also disrupted were hospitals, emergency services, and virtually any other organization relying on Microsoft programs or cloud services. Among the companies pushed offline were Microsoft itself, along with its office software suite Microsoft 365 and its Azure cloud system.
According to the New York Times, a first wave of clients in the central U.S. noted problems using Microsoft 365 apps like TeamWorks earlier Thursday. Those were eventually linked to troubles on the Azure platform. Later that evening, however, a flaw in the CrowdStrike update spread throughout the wider Microsoft IT system, shutting countless PCs and companies down as a result.
Just before 7 a.m. EDT, the Microsoft 365 Status account on social-media platform X offered customers some hope that resolution might be nearing, along with a link containing information about addressing the problem.
“We’re aware of an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software,” the Microsoft 365 Status account said. “To fix this, users may restore their Windows 365 Cloud PC to a known good state prior to the release of the update (July 19, 2024) as documented here: Enterprise https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365/enterprise/restore-overview.”
Many understandably impatient Microsoft clients were unhappy about the advice offered through the link, leading several other X contributors to post what they claimed to be effective fixes.
Despite continued progress by Microsoft in restoring PC functionality to increasing numbers of individual users, however, major chaos continued disrupting normal life as the U.S. began its Friday work schedule.
According to the Times, “about 7 a.m., there were more than 500 flight delays across the country.” Many big companies that were listed as offline by Downdetector.com Thursday night — including Visa, Bank of America, AT&T, Amazon, Delta Airlines, Starbucks, and Microsoft itself — remained down Friday morning. The continued breadth of the outage therefore makes doing business tricky, even for many people whose PCs are back up.
What should you do if your company computers — and business activity — are affected by the outage? CrowdStrike’s repair is starting to get PCs back online, but if you’re confident and tech-savvy enough, you could try one of the purported fixes that online commentators say worked for them. Yet given the frenzied reactions and extent of the outage and the speed with which hackers can seize opportunities for bad acts, it would be wise to think twice before undertaking any DIY hacks provided by unknown helpers online.
Otherwise, there may be nothing more you can do than wait until Microsoft makes further progress with its restoration efforts, which are getting individual users and companies up and running again.
Though that could take several hours, there’s no real point exploiting that imposed exile offline to get an early start on your weekend. With the outage affecting several major ground and air transport companies and infrastructure operators, you probably won’t get very far.
