A global tech outage caused by a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected approximately 8.5 million Microsoft devices, according to a blog post from Microsoft on Saturday.
The blog noted, “We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update impacted 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.”
The update from CrowdStrike, a major player in the cybersecurity industry, led to widespread system issues. These disruptions grounded flights, knocked broadcasters off the air, and left customers without access to essential services such as healthcare and banking.
Despite the small percentage of affected devices, Microsoft highlighted the significant economic and societal impacts, reflecting the extensive use of CrowdStrike’s services in critical sectors.
CrowdStrike has developed a solution to help expedite a fix for Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure. Microsoft also mentioned collaborating with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform to share information about the industry-wide effects.
The air travel industry was still in recovery mode on Saturday following the outage, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and significant delays. Delta Air Lines, one of the most impacted airlines, reported that by 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Saturday, over 600 flights had been canceled, with further cancellations anticipated.
