According to a report by Tom Warren for The Verge, thousands of Windows machines are experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) today, disrupting operations across various industries, including banks, airlines, TV broadcasters, and supermarkets worldwide. The issue allegedly stems from a faulty update released by cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike, which has rendered affected PCs and servers inoperable, causing them to enter a recovery boot loop. CrowdStrike’s software is widely utilized by businesses globally to secure Windows PCs and servers.
Per The Verge’s report, the problem first surfaced in Australia, where banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters reported numerous machines going offline. As businesses in Europe began their workday, similar issues emerged. UK broadcaster Sky News was unable to air its morning news bulletins for hours, displaying an apology message for the disruption. European airline Ryanair also reported IT issues affecting flight departures, attributing the problems to a third-party service.
In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is apparently assisting airlines such as Delta, United, and American Airlines due to communication disruptions. FAA spokesperson Jeannie Shiffer told The Verge that the agency is closely monitoring the technical issues impacting IT systems at US airlines, with several requesting FAA support for ground stops until the problem is resolved.
Berlin Airport has also warned travelers of delays due to technical problems. In Alaska, numerous 911 emergency call centers have been affected. An Indian airline has resorted to using handwritten boarding passes to manage the outages.
The report also mentioned that CrowdStrike acknowledged the issue in a support note issued at 1:20 AM ET, identifying the problematic update and rolling it back. However, this measure did not resolve the issues for already impacted machines.
IT administrators on Reddit have shared workaround steps involving booting into safe mode and deleting a specific file from the CrowdStrike directory. This solution presents challenges, particularly for cloud-based servers and remote Windows laptops.
Adding to the turmoil, Microsoft is recovering from separate issues with its Microsoft 365 apps and services caused by a configuration change in its Azure backend workloads. This has compounded the difficulties faced by IT teams worldwide.
Update at 11:45 a.m. UTC on 19 July 2024:
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