Banks, airlines, and other major businesses worldwide flooded with Window's 'Blue Screen of Death' after biggest IT outage ever

A fault in a recent CrowdStrike update has led to severe incidents of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors on Windows machines worldwide. Thousands of computers are affected, leading to significant disruptions for banks, airlines, TV broadcasters, supermarkets, and other businesses. This is prepared by SSP.

The issue began with Australian banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters reporting the problem. This spread rapidly to Europe, with UK broadcaster Sky News unable to deliver its morning bulletins, apologizing for the disruption. Furthermore, Ryanair and several US airlines, including Delta, United, and American Airlines, faced significant technical issues, grounding flights and causing travel delays. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed it is offering aid, with spokesperson Jeannie Shiffer commenting on close monitoring of this technical problem that’s affecting major US carriers. Berlin airport and many emergency call centers in Alaska also reported operational disruptions, forcing some Indian airlines to resort to handwritten boarding passes.

CrowdStrike, a widely used cybersecurity provider, quickly identified the problem with a single content update for Windows systems through its Falcon Sensor. While CrowdStrike's CEO George Kurtz assured that Mac and Linux hosts were unaffected and emphasized the issue wasn’t a cyberattack, the faulty kernel-level driver update necessitated complex remediation steps, frustrating IT admins. Users must boot into safe mode and remove specific files to restore functionality, challenging especially for cloud-based servers or remotely used Windows laptops. Reports on Reddit described widespread struggles among IT personnel, with entire companies going offline and significant disruptions observed.

Microsoft simultaneously faced issues with its 365 apps and services due to a backend Azure configuration change. The company confirmed via social media its ongoing mitigation efforts and reassured users of continuous improvements and a commitment to resolving the remaining impacts.

In light of these events, understanding BSOD is crucial. Such errors, often emerging from severe hardware or software malfunctions, force Windows systems to shut down to prevent damage. If the installation of new hardware precedes a BSOD instance, removing the hardware and restarting the system may resolve the issue. Utilizing safe mode or restoring the system to a previous state are recommended troubleshooting steps.

Earlier, SSP reported that Germany plans to remove Huawei and ZTE components from its 5G wireless network.