A global tech outage that was related to a software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected nearly 8.5 million Microsoft devices, Microsoft said in a blog post on Saturday, Reuters reported.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” It said in the blog.
A software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, one of the largest operators in the industry, triggered systems problems that grounded flights, forced broadcasters off the air and left customers without access to services like healthcare or banking.
According to Reuters, CrowdStrike has helped develop a solution that will help Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure accelerate a fix, Microsoft said, adding that it was working with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, sharing information about the effects Microsoft was seeing across the industry.
Microsoft posed on their Official Microsoft Blog – “Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage”
Steps taken have included:
- Engaging with CrowdStrike to automate their work on a developing solution. CrowdStrike has recommended a workaround to address the issue and has also issued a public statement. Instructions to remedy the situation on Windows endpoints were posted on the Windows Message Center.
- Deploying hundreds of Microsoft engineers and experts to work directly with customers to restore services
- Collaborating with other cloud providers and stakeholders, including Google Cloud Platform (CGP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), to share awareness on the state of impact we are each seeing across the industry and inform ongoing conversations with CrowdStrike and customers.
- Quickly posting manual remediation documentation and scripts found here
- Keeping customers informed of the latest stats on the incident through the Azure Status Dashboard here
NPR reported disruptions caused by Friday’s global tech outage continued into Saturday, as employees of airlines, banks, hospitals and other crucial businesses worked to catch up from the backlog caused by the historic technological meltdown that affected 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide.
Airlines were playing the biggest catchup game, after carriers were forced to cancel thousands of flights on Friday, leaving planes and crews stuck in the wrong locations. As of Saturday afternoon, with nearly 1,500 flights across the U.S. had been canceled for the day, with another 4,600 delayed, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.
Stranded travelers, meanwhile, expressed frustration.
Hospitals, too, were hit with a backlog after being forced to cancel appointments, including elective surgeries.
Massachusetts General Brigham, a Boston-based hospital, said it was back to being operational on Saturday after canceling all non-urgent surgeries and other appointments on Friday because of the outage.
In my opinion, I can see why stranded travelers, who had their flight canceled, would be upset about this situation. Nobody wants to be stranded in an airport.