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By Joe Edwards
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CrowdStrike's CEO confirmed the cause of a massive IT outage on Friday that triggered widespread chaos for businesses around the world was not a security incident or cyberattack.
The outage grounded flights, took broadcasters off air and saw peoples' Windows computers suddenly crash, with many experiencing the dreaded "blue screen of death."
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, George Kurtz said the issue was down to "a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts" and that a fix had been deployed.
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"We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website," he added.
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Before Kurtz's announcement, Newsweek spoke to Steven Murdoch, professor of security engineering and head of the Information Security Research Group at University College London, who said CrowdStrike's software is designed to prevent malicious attacks.
"What's happened here, almost certainly, is not malicious, it's a series of unfortunate accidents," he said.
Murdoch said this outage seems to be larger than what has come before and may be challenging to mitigate. He said the issue could go on for "quite a while."
"This does seem to be particularly big," he said.
Recovery would depend on how well organizations have planned such an event, indicated Murdoch, while stressing that most contingency plans are focused on attacks rather than accidents.
Outages could be protracted if a company doesn't have the capability to physically correct the issues.
The outage, which began on Friday morning, has hit a multitude of institutions and services globally. Flyers faced misery as flights were grounded. According to the BBC, some 1,400 flights have been cancelled worldwide.
Some emergency services in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio have also reportedly been affected.
Financial institutions around the world have also been hit. The London Stock Exchange reported that its Regulatory News Service was experiencing "third party global technical issues." Several banks in Australia also appear to be experiencing issues.
Media companies, such as the U.K.'s Sky News was also briefly unable to broadcast early Friday. Some BBC channels were also affected.
CrowdStrike earlier said on its website that the company was "aware of reports of crashes on Windows related to the Falcon Sensor."
"We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike. Customers that are continuing to experience issues should reach out to CrowdStrike for additional assistance," Microsoft said.
Newsweek has contacted CrowdStrike via email and Microsoft via their U.K. press office for additional comment.
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The ripple effect of the outage has seen shares in Microsoft and CrowdStrike fall in pre-market trading.
At one point in the early hours of Friday, CrowdStrike stock fell more than 20 percent, putting the share price at $273, though it recovered slightly and was trading at $301.97 per share at 07:19 a.m. ET. It closed at $343.05 on Thursday.
Friday's incident could potentially wipe billions off the company's market cap.
Microsoft shares fell more than three percent early Friday to $426, and the stock was trading at $434.80 per share at 07:22 a.m. ET.
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