It’s possible we are looking at the largest IT outage in history.
More than 70% of the world’s desktop computers run on Microsoft Windows software.
A software update from one of Microsoft’s clients – cybersecurity company CrowdStrike – has now taken a large number of those machines offline.
The faulty code – just a few lines long – has led to global disruption with an economic impact that is as yet incalculable – but likely to be huge.
Follow live: Major services across the world affected by outage
The “Falcon Sensor” product designed to protect Windows from malicious attacks is used widely on Mac and Linux systems as well as within more bespoke software for things like cash machines.
Thankfully, the update that caused the Microsoft meltdown did not affect these other software families – if it had, the impacts could have been catastrophic.
Serious questions
There are serious questions of course for CrowdStrike.
But also Microsoft: What due diligence do they perform on third party providers and on individual updates before they’re released across their globally dominant system?
There are questions too for anyone whose livelihood depends on IT products made by an increasingly powerful oligopoly of tech companies.
Read more:
Mass IT outage affects worldwide travel
What’s been impacted by the outage?
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Global tech issues explained
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