Early this morning, Windows-based systems around the world started crashing and showing the classic Blue Screen of Death. At the moment, it appears that the issue was not caused on Microsoft"s end but by a faulty software update sent out to those systems by the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
Today, in his first TV interview since this incident took place, CrowdStrike"s CEO went on NBC"s Today morning show to explain what happened. He first stated that he was "deeply sorry" this incident has happened "to anyone affected by this".
Kurtz says that the company has now "resolved the issue" and that CrowdStrike is "working with each and every customer to make sure we can bring them back online." However, he admitted later in the interview that it "could be some time for some systems that just automatically won"t recover." Still, he added that "we are not going to relent until we get every customer back to where we are."
This massive outage of Windows systems based on one buggy software update from CrowdStrike has already been called by many to be the single biggest IT-based outage in history. CNBC reports that, among many other effects, it briefly shut down flights from major airlines like American, Delta, and United. Two hospitals in Germany have said they have canceled elective procedures today, and UK-based grocer Waitrose briefly halted contactless payments.
NBC News added that 15 major hospitals in Israel were affected by the outage. The state of Alaska reported that 911 emergency calls were not working. Sky News in the UK was briefly unable to air live news on their channel.
In his Today Show interview, Kurtz hinted that CrowdStrike will launch an investigation into this incident, stating, "We have to go back and see what happened here." There"s no word on if the US government or other governments worldwide will seek to have their own investigations.