Businesses across the world are reporting IT outages, including Windows “blue screen of death” errors on their computers, in what has already become one of the most widespread IT disruptions in recent years. The outage — linked to an update of widely-used security software from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike — has affected computers running Microsoft Windows at organizations across various sectors, including airlines, banks, food chains and brokerage houses, news organizations, and railway networks. The travel sector seems to be the hardest hit, based on online chatter.
CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, confirmed that a ‘defect’ in a content update for Windows hosts had caused the outage and ruled out a cyberattack. He added that the firm was rolling out a fix and that Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted.


