Cybersecurity software company CrowdStrike announced that they have identified the cause of the global computer system crash that disrupted airports, banks, companies, and even the Paris 2024 Olympics.
On the evening of July 19 (Vietnam time), CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz issued an apology for the global computer system crash that disrupted numerous major industries, from aviation and banking to healthcare.
“We deeply apologize for the impact we have caused to our customers, travelers, and anyone affected by this incident, including our own company,” Kurtz said on NBC News’ Today show.
“It may take some time for some non-automated systems to recover. However, our company ensures that all our customers’ software will be fully restored,” added the CrowdStrike CEO.
Global Technology Disruption
Reuters reported that numerous airports and major airlines worldwide suddenly announced delays or cancellations of flights on the afternoon of July 19.
In addition to the aviation service, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, several oil exchanges in London and Singapore, some stock exchanges in Hong Kong, the global investment banking and financial services firm Macquarie Capital (Australia), several brokerage firms in India, insurance companies, and banks in Germany and South Africa also experienced significant disruptions.
Besides aviation and banking, media outlets were also “frozen” for a period. Notably, Sky News (UK) and ABC Television (Australia) experienced sudden outages.
Healthcare services in some countries were also thrown into chaos due to the global computer system crash on the afternoon of July 19.
Remarkably, this technological incident also disrupted the computer system of the New Zealand Parliament, some critical infrastructure in Germany, electronic systems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India’s largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki.
Cause Not Due to Cyber Attack
On the afternoon of July 19, CrowdStrike reported “multiple reports of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) incidents on Windows servers.” The term “Blue Screen of Death” is commonly used to describe system failures on Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The incident caused a global outage of Microsoft 365 services like Teams and OneDrive.
“This is not a security incident or the result of a cyberattack. The issue has been identified, and we are working to resolve it,” Kurtz wrote on social media X.
CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity software company that provides cloud-based security solutions for businesses.
According to technology experts, CrowdStrike’s Falcon tool, which helps protect the computers of businesses and organizations from cyberattacks and malware, was one of the causes of the widespread incident on July 19.
CrowdStrike Falcon software monitors computer activities in detail, looking for unusual, malicious activities and blocking these threats. However, this functionality can also cause significant disruptions when CrowdStrike Falcon encounters issues.