Microsoft services failure causes global collapse of banks, flights and other companies

Companies and banks around the world have been affected by a massive computer outage that has caused, among other things, the cancellation of flights and chaos.

The anomalies have been recorded in companies that work with Windows, and the reason is an incident with CrowdStrike, one of the main cybersecurity platforms in the cloud.

The company has admitted that a failure in an update of its CrowdStrike Falcon platform, one of the Windows protection systems, has caused the chaos, and assures that it is already working to reverse these changes.

Other sectors such as finance and the media have also been affected. have been affected. Downdetector, a website specialized in monitoring interruptions of online services, registered sudden spikes in incidents on multiple websites that use Microsoft applications since last night.

The problems, which were initially detected in the United States, have quickly spread to other parts of the world.

Blue screens on devices

Likewise, users with devices that use Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 have been affected by the appearance of a blue screen on the affected computers.

Microsoft suggests restarting the devices. In many cases, this action may be enough to temporarily resolve the failure, however, the company adds that some users have had to restart their devices up to 15 times to get them working normally again.

If the failure continues to appear, Microsoft recommends restoring a backup or repairing the operating system disk offline.

For his part, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz assured this Friday that his engineers have already solved the problem that caused the global failure in Microsoft systems, although he has warned that it may take time for some customers to operate again.

“We know what the problem is. We have already solved it. We’re now recovering the systems that are out there,” Kurtz said in an interview with NBC News.

What is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz (former CTO of McAfee) and has become one of the most used cybersecurity firms in the world, with more than 29,000 clients.

Its function is to detect and prevent possible cyberattacks to avoid critical damage to the companies it works with.

The company is based in Texas and, among other things, detected the hack of Sony Pictures in 2014 or the cyberattacks on the Democratic Party between 2015 and 2016.