A faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide Friday, grounding flights, knocking down some financial companies and news outlets, and disrupting hospitals, small businesses, and government offices.
The breadth of the outages highlighted the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a few providers for key computing services.
The trouble was sparked by an update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and affected only its customers running Microsoft Windows, the world’s most popular operating system for personal computers.
It was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
Businesses and governments worldwide experienced hourslong disruptions — their computer monitors glowing blue with error messages — and they scrambled to deal with the fallout. CrowdStrike’s CEO said some of their systems would require time-consuming manual fixes.
Thousands of flights were canceled and tens of thousands were delayed, leading to long lines at airports in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. Airlines lost access to check-in and booking services in the heart of the summer travel season. By late afternoon Eastern time, the worst appeared to be over, though there were still lingering cancellations and delays due to the cascading effect of the disruption.
Several local TV stations in the U.S. were prevented from airing the news early Friday, and some state and local governments reported problems at courts, motor vehicle departments, unemployment agencies, emergency call centers and other offices, but as the day progressed many of the systems were getting back to normal.
Affected hospitals had problems with appointment systems, forcing them to suspend patient visits and cancel some surgeries.
