What we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world (2024)

What we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world (1)

Microsoft, which hosts cloud services with businesses and governments, said it was grappling with service outages after a glitch triggered by software distributed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Haven Daley/AP hide caption

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Haven Daley/AP

A technological meltdown left employees of airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency services around the world staring at the dreaded “blue screen of death” on Friday as their computers went inert in what is being described as a historic outage.

“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it's actually happened this time,” internet security analyst Troy Hunt said via X.

Technology

Security experts race to fix critical software flaw threatening industries worldwide

From continent to continent, Microsoft users reported being suddenly knocked offline, and the culprit was determined to be cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which says one of its routine software updates malfunctioned.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” the company said in a statement.

Customers using Mac and Linux operating systems were not affected, CrowdStrike said.

When the faulty update crashed computer systems, scores of airport travelers were stranded, hospital appointments were delayed and live news broadcasts were cut short.

How big is the outage?

It is massive, far-reaching and sudden.

Some computer problems cascade, creating ripples of failures. But in this case, the flaw permeated Microsoft systems worldwide nearly immediately. The company says its Windows 365 Cloud PCs, apps and services were affected.

Microsoft remains the dominant desktop operating system worldwide, with more than 72% market share, according to the Statcounter website. The CrowdStrike problem does not directly affect all of those machines: its security software is mainly used by businesses and large organizations. The company says its customers include 43 U.S. states and nearly 300 companies in the Fortune 500.

Hundreds of thousands of Microsoft outages were reported on Friday, according to Downdetector, the website that tracks outages based on users’ reports.

In 16 hours, 311,000 global outage reports came in, Michelle Badrian, senior communications manager at Ookla, which owns Downdetector, told NPR. Of that figure, she added, 58,000 reports were from the U.S., 26,000 from the U.K., and 20,000 from India. Large numbers of reports also came in from Germany, Canada and Australia.

There are signs that relief is on the way: Badrian said that as of midday Friday ET, “we are observing report volumes declining both for Microsoft services and for all services overall.”

While server-related outages are common, the scale of the CrowdStrike disruption was astonishing to many tech observers.

“This IT outage is a stark reminder of how dependent we are on technology and many other things that happen behind the scenes that most of us are unaware of,” said Louisville-based tech executive Adam Robinson on X. “Modern society and the many comforts we enjoy is a fragile thing.”

What we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world (3)

Passengers wait in front of check-in counters at the capital's Berlin Brandenburg Airport, in Schönefeld, Germany, on Friday after a widespread technology outage disrupted flights, banks, media outlets and companies around the world. Christoph Soeder/AP/DPA hide caption

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Christoph Soeder/AP/DPA

What about air travel?

More than 2,000 flights originating or landing in the U.S. were canceled as of noon ET Friday, and more than twice that number were delayed, according to the FlightAware tracking site.

Delta Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines announced they were resuming some or all of their scheduled flights after initially being grounded when the problem struck their systems. The airlines also said they were issuing waivers to affected customers.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport — a major hub for long-distance flights — said a "global system failure" impacted incoming and outgoing flights on one of the busiest days of the year.

Landings at Zurich airport were suspended and flights in Hungary disrupted.

Spanish airport operator Aena reported a computer systems “incident” at all Spanish airports that it said could cause delays.

What other kinds of services went offline?

In some states, including Alaska and Ohio, 911 phone lines were down.

The U.K.’s National Health Service has been widely affected. The NHS said Friday that doctors’ appointments and patient records had been affected but that there was no known impact on emergency services. The BBC reported that two-thirds of doctors’ practices in Northern Ireland had been affected, with doctors unable to access patient records, generate prescriptions or see the result of laboratory tests.

In Germany, some hospitals canceled non-emergency operations.

Broadcasters around the world were also affected. In France and Australia, live television broadcasts were knocked offline.

Sky News, a major U.K. news channel, was off air for a time on Friday morning. It later returned, but without “full capabilities,” its chairman, David Rhodes, said on X Friday afternoon. A post on Australia’s ABC News website said the broadcaster was experiencing a “major network outage.”

The London Stock Exchange’s news service stopped working. Shipping in the Baltic was also impacted, with the container hub of Gdansk in Poland hit by major disruptions.

How do people fix their computers?

CrowdStrike says the problem was not a cyberattack, but rather a software glitch. The company said that after identifying the issue, it withdrew the "problematic channel file" that was affecting customers' systems.

Because of that move, if a Windows system with CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor was brought online after 1:27 a.m. ET Friday , the company said, it wouldn't be affected.

It also published a workaround that involves booting a Windows machine in a recovery environment, deleting a single file in the CrowdStrike directory, and restarting.

What we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world (4)

An airport information screen displays an error message rather than travel information at San Francisco International Airport on Friday after a computer problem unraveled systems in the U.S. and dozens of other countries. Talia Smith/NPR hide caption

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Talia Smith/NPR

What is CrowdStrike?

It’s a U.S. cybersecurity firm based in Austin, Texas. The company went public in 2019 and is currently in the S&P 500 index. As of early July, CrowdStrike’s stock had been riding months of gains. But share prices fell sharply in early trading Friday.

“This is clearly a major black eye for CrowdStrike,” said WedBush analyst Dan Ives.

CrowdStrike made headlines in 2016, when the company was hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a breach of its data systems. CrowdStrike determined that the hack was a case of foreign interference — the work of Russian-backed hacking groups.

The company’s marquee product is its “Falcon” cybersecurity software — and it traced the current problem to a change in a sensor in that system. That also helps explain how and why the resulting failures might have spread so quickly: Rather than being stored locally, the Falcon security platform “is 100% cloud-based.”

The company apologized for the outages on Friday, stating, "We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption."

This is a developing story and will be updated.

What we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world (2024)

FAQs

What do we know about the computer update glitch disrupting systems around the world? ›

A technological meltdown disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and emergency services on Friday. Thousands of Microsoft users reported being suddenly knocked offline, and the culprit appeared to be cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which had a routine software update malfunction.

What is a glitch in the computer system? ›

A computer glitch is the failure of a system, usually containing a computing device, to complete its functions or to perform them properly. It frequently refers to an error which is not detected at the time it occurs but shows up later in data errors or incorrect human decisions.

What does it mean when your computer starts to glitch? ›

Software Glitches: These occur due to issues within a software program. They might cause the software to freeze, crash, or produce incorrect outputs. Hardware Glitches: These result from physical problems with your computer's hardware. Examples include overheating, hard drive failure, or faulty RAM.

What does a computer glitch look like? ›

Computer glitching describes temporary malfunctions that affect your system's hardware and software. It can cause issues like a frozen screen or a program crash. Screen flickering, on the other hand, is strictly a display issue. It can cause rapid changes in brightness or lines on the screen.

What caused the computer glitch? ›

The glitch was caused by a corrupted update which caused computers running Windows to crash, causing havoc across much of the world. Microsoft has estimated that around 8.5 million computers around the world were affected by the recent global IT outage.

How do I get rid of glitches on my computer? ›

Troubleshooting Steps
  1. Restarting and Updating Your PC: Begin by restarting your computer to see if the problem persists. ...
  2. Checking for Malware and Viruses: Run a full scan with reputable antivirus software to detect and remove any malicious programs that may be causing issues.
Apr 3, 2024

What is it called when a computer glitches? ›

A software bug is a bug in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as buggy. The effects of a software bug range from minor (such as a misspelled word in the user interface) to severe (such as frequent crashing).

What is a glitch example? ›

to experience a small fault or problem, especially one that stops something from working: The mail system has glitched a couple of times recently. At that moment the videophone glitched. Sometimes, the app will glitch and I can't connect to the server.

What did glitch mean before computers? ›

Glitch is derived from glitsh, Yiddish for slippery place, and from glitshn, meaning to slide, or glide. Glitch was in use in the 1940s by radio announcers to indicate an on-air mistake. By the 1950s, the term had migrated to television, where engineers used glitch to refer to technical problems.

What happens when your computer screen glitches? ›

Common causes of screen flickering include outdated drivers, malfunctioning hardware components such as the graphics card or monitor, incompatible software applications running in the background and power supply fluctuations.

How to stop a computer from glitching? ›

Try these solutions to resolve your laptop's screen flickering:
  1. Update your display driver. Updating your display driver can often resolve flickering issues: ...
  2. Check for Windows updates. ...
  3. Adjust the refresh rate. ...
  4. Disable Windows Desktop Manager. ...
  5. Check for loose connections. ...
  6. Run the Windows troubleshooter. ...
  7. Perform a clean boot.
Aug 7, 2024

How does a glitch happen? ›

“An electronics glitch is a transition that occurs within a signal before the signal settles to its intended value”. (Geek voice time) This implies that the 'glitch' situation occurs due to race-like conditions that occur between two signals derived from a common source but with different delays.

How do you use system glitch in a sentence? ›

It was the second time this month the bank had been hit by online glitches, with the first incident blamed on complex technical issues. HUNDREDS of mobile phone calls have been listened to by strangers after a systems glitch, it emerged yesterday.

How to fix a computer bug? ›

  1. 1 Update your system. One of the easiest and most effective ways to fix bugs and improve performance on your operating system is to keep it updated. ...
  2. 2 Clean up your disk. ...
  3. 3 Manage your startup programs. ...
  4. 4 Adjust your system settings. ...
  5. 5 Scan and repair your system. ...
  6. 6 Upgrade your hardware. ...
  7. 7 Here's what else to consider.
Aug 14, 2023

What is the fear of computer glitches called? ›

Verzephobia Fear of Errors and Glitches.

Why do we call computer glitches bugs? ›

The term "computer bug" originated from a real-life insect. The first recorded instance of a bug causing a technical malfunction occurred in 1947 when engineers working on the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator, an early computer at Harvard University, found a moth lodged in the machine's hardware.

What is software that disrupts the normal function of computer known as? ›

Malware (a portmanteau of malicious software) is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, deprive access to information, or which unknowingly interferes with the user's ...

What program disturbs the working of a computer? ›

A computer virus is a program or a set of programs that disrupts the normal operation of a computer.

How did the Y2K bug caused major computer difficulties? ›

The year 2000 problem, or simply Y2K, comprises potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many programs represented four-digit years with only the final two digits, making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900.

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