Everything we know so far about the CrowdStrike outage

A catastrophic IT outage has hit countries across the globe. Here’s everything you need to know.

A bug in cybersecurity software used by public institutions and private companies, from broadcasting, to tech, to finance and logistics and even supermarkets, triggered massive computer system failures.

Devices including personal computers, self serve checkouts and EFTPOS machines were shut down or entered a ‘blue screen of death’, characterised by a sad emoji and a Windows error message.

Even at Sydney Airport, the travelling public were greeted by blued-out arrivals and departure boards, and flights themselves were cancelled and delayed.

How did it happen?

The issue started with cyber security provider Crowdstrike, which provides data protection software for its customers. It’s believed an update to one of its products - Falcon sensor - pushed out overnight in the US contained a “defect”.

Crowdstrike president and CEO George Kurtz confirmed the issue only hit Windows hosts, and by 8pm said the issue had been “identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed”.

The exact nature of the bug is unknown.

How many countries are affected?

Experts are calling this one of the biggest global outages ever experienced, hitting countries all across the world. Known countries impacted by the outage include; Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, the Philippines, India, Central America and China.

How did it impact airports?

Air passengers across the world faced cancellations, delays and problems checking in as airlines were caught up in the outage.

Several major U.S airlines, including American Airlines, United and Delta grounded flights, while other airlines were forced the delay or cancel flights.

Australian airline Jetstar was hit hardest by the outage, with the airline being forced to cancel or delay tens of flights.

Many airports such as Singapore’s Changi, Hong Kong International Airport, and some Sydney airlines switched to manual checks, with self-service facilities cripplied by the outage.

What happens next?

The fix requires IT departments at affected companies to manually deploy a workaround, which means for major companies with 24/7 support, the issue should be fixed by Saturday morning. For others, resolving the crisis may take longer. The crisis will likely force companies to reconsider spending their cybersecurity dollars with Crowdstrike - or at least put extra defences in place to prevent a repeat.

Experts are warning the outage could be a “dress rehearsal” for what a cyber terror attack could look like,

What you can do:

Cyber security experts have urged the Australian public not to panic - this wasn’t a cyber attack or security breach - and that such incidents are a “reality of life in the digital age”. If your workplace was affected, your IT department will likely have already been in touch, but as services resume, expect some local businesses to be affected over the weekend and some flow-on effects for airlines - if you’re shopping or travelling, check your destination for updates.

Will personal computers be impacted?

Fortunately, CrowdStrike’s software is generally used on large business and enterprise systems, meaning home computers should not be impacted by the outage.