Microsoft didn’t create the defective CrowdStrike update that crippled Windows machines around the world Friday morning, but its reputation took a hit along with its flagship operating system as the situation unfolded.
Stranded travelers posted images of the Windows “Blue Screen of Death” on airport systems, venting their frustration as United, American and Delta airlines ordered global ground stops while they attempted to recover from the outage.
Many media organizations, grappling with the impact on their own systems, described it as a “Microsoft outage,” which was technically correct, albeit incomplete. Although the outage impacted Microsoft Windows systems, it was CrowdStrike, not Microsoft, that was responsible for the buggy update.
On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the hosts briefly turned their attention from the drama of the U.S. presidential campaign to the saga unfolding in the technology world.
“It’s impacting the entire world. It’s just a little frightening,” host Joe Scarborough said during the show’s opening. “This is what happens when you have companies like Microsoft, that many people consider to be a monopoly. If something goes down with Microsoft software, just about everybody is impacted.”
CrowdStrike, based in Austin, Texas, is a security software vendor that offers a cloud platform called Falcon that is designed to protect companies and organizations from cybersecurity threats. As evidenced by the number of organizations impacted by the outage, its software is widely used by Fortune 500 companies and others.
“Earlier today, a CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. “We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was clear in identifying CrowdStrike as the source of the problem in his post about the issue on social media, mentioning the cybersecurity company twice by name.
In his own posts on social media, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz acknowledged that the problem was with the cybersecurity company’s own update. The company outlined a fix for the issue, which involves booting Windows machines in safe mode and deleting the file associated with the CrowdStrike update.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” he wrote. “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”
In cases where customers are running cloud-based Microsoft Azure virtual machines, Microsoft is able to help them roll back the CrowdStrike update if they ask for help. However, if the update was installed on a local machine, a traditional Windows PC, the fix is up to the user or IT department.
The incident was still unfolding at Sea-Tac Airport on Friday morning. Delta Airlines seemed especially hard-hit, as evidenced by the long lines snaking through the airport, filled with its would-be passengers.
Marcia and Randy Burt of Iowa said they had been on a “wonderful” cruise out of Seattle and were trying to get home when the outage impacted their travel. They found out at 6:30 a.m. that their 11:55 a.m. flight was canceled.
“[Delta] booked us on another one at 9:25,” Marcia Burt said. “And we read it on our texts at about 9:20 this morning.”
“Not even close,” Randy Burt said about their hopes for making that flight.
In a long line for the Delta help desk at the airport, the couple faced the prospect of spending another night in Seattle.
“It’s a beautiful city, but I hope not,” Randy Burt said.
Daniel Cardenas of Seattle was headed to San Diego on Friday when he got email and text notifications from Delta telling him his 7:30 a.m. flight had been canceled.
An hour into his wait to speak to a Delta agent, Cardenas said, “There’s really no telling if there are any flights that are going to be available today. So I may have to cancel my trip entirely.”
One silver lining if that happens: “My dog will be happy,” he said.
Elsewhere in the Seattle region, Seattle Public Library and the Providence health-care system were among the organizations impacted by the CrowdStrike outage.
Separately, Microsoft’s central role in global IT infrastructure has come under growing scrutiny in the context of its direct responsibility for cybersecurity failures. This surfaced most recently in a U.S. House committee hearing focusing on a high-profile 2023 incident in which Chinese hackers infiltrated U.S. government systems.
In the case of CrowdStrike’s bungled update, even though Microsoft wasn’t responsible for the flaw, the widespread nature of the outage was a stark reminder of the world’s reliance on its software platforms.
Microsoft says its focus now is on helping its customers fix the CrowdStrike problem. Efforts to repair its reputation would come later. But in a world where the first impression is often the one that sticks, the nuances of technical responsibility for this latest “Microsoft outage” might prove tougher to address than a buggy update.
GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser contributed to this story.