A global technology outage caused by a software update issued by CrowdStrike affected various industries including airlines, health care systems, banks and businesses around the world on July 19, 2024. The disruption was due to a glitch in the Microsoft Windows operating system and was not a security incident or cyberattack. The outage led to numerous cancellations of flights across multiple U.S. airlines such as Allegiant Air, American, Delta, Spirit and United.
According to reports, more than 2000 flights were canceled compared to about 900 on the previous day. The failures also disrupted operations of various industries including banks and global retail giants. CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., a dominant supplier of software that protects businesses from ransomware attacks, was thrust into the spotlight as they struggled to fix the faulty patch that led to cascading, system-wide failures.
The outage resulted in significant losses for the stock market with both S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite experiencing their worst weekly losses since April. US stocks fell on Friday due to the global IT outage and concerns over tech stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also slipped almost 1%.
The software update affected Microsoft-based systems, including Azure cloud services, leading to widespread disruptions across various industries.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz stated that it was not a security incident or cyberattack and a fix had been sent out. However, he warned that the impact of the outage could be historic due to the global economy's fragile dependence on certain software and the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong.
The failure in computer systems also affected stocks with significant price movements such as CrowdStrike, Plug Power, Comerica and others. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9%, shedding 900 points over the last two sessions but managed a slight gain for the week.
It is important to note that this article is not biased towards any political or ideological stance and aims to provide a factual account of the events.