GLOBAL BLACKOUT: Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death Leaves Thousands of Services Without a System

Serious problem with computer blue screen of death (BSOD) began overnight this Thursday, July 18th, and continues this Friday, the 19th, in several locations around the world, affecting essential services such as airports, banks, TV and radio stations, supermarkets and other businesses.

A faulty update from cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike takes affected computers and servers offline, forcing them into a recovery loop so the machines can’t boot properly. CrowdStrike is widely used by many companies around the world to manage the security of Windows PCs and servers.

In a social media post at 5:45 a.m. ET Friday, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said his company was “actively working with customers impacted by a flaw found in a content update for Google hosts,” adding, “This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

Kurz said the problem “was identified, isolated and a solution implemented.”

He continued: “We are directing customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide full and ongoing updates on our website. Additionally, we encourage organizations to always contact CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. “Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

Microsoft first acknowledged the issue around 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, posting on social media that said: “We’re investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

It became clear overnight that the problem had affected multiple services around the world. In the United States, major airlines such as Delta, United and American Airlines were grounded, and international airlines were also affected. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was “closely monitoring” the IT outage, adding that “several airlines have asked the FAA for assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved.”

Australia’s Sydney airport was one of those to display the dreaded blue screen of death.

Sydney airport flight displays are all BSOD. #microsoft #crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/ZL9QwGdi1a

— techAU (@techAU) July 19, 2024

Tech billionaire Elon Musk called it “the biggest tech failure in history.”

The Biggest IT Failure in History

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 19, 2024

At 6:45 a.m. ET on Friday, Microsoft said in a social media post that the “root cause has been resolved” but added that “residual impact continues to impact some Microsoft 365 apps and services.”

In a Reddit thread, hundreds of IT administrators are reporting widespread issues, and troubleshooting steps include booting affected Windows machines into Safe Mode, navigating to the CrowdStrike directory, and deleting the system file. This will be problematic on some cloud servers or even Windows laptops that are deployed and used remotely.

This appears to be a separate outage: Microsoft is also recovering from several issues with its Microsoft 365 apps and services. The root cause of these issues is due to “a configuration change in some of our Azure server workloads.”