A massive IT outage caused major disruption across numerous industries late on Thursday and into Friday , with airlines , retail , banking , health care system , and even broadcastersamong those affected .

It later emerged that the outage was due to a defective software program update rolled out by Texas - basedcybersecurity firm CrowdStrikefor its Microsoft Windows hosts .

Ina post on social mediaat 5:45 a.m. ET on Friday , CrowdStrike chief George Kurtz said his company is “ actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows master of ceremonies . ” He added that “ this is not a security system incident or cyberattack . ”

Kurtz say the result “ has been identified , isolated , and a hole has been deploy . ”

He went on : “ We refer customer to the support portal for the latest update and will go forward to provide complete and uninterrupted updateson our website . We further commend organizations assure they ’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels . Our squad is amply rally to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers . ”

Microsoft first acknowledged the problem at around 8 p.m. ET on Thursday witha Emily Price Post on social mediasaying : “ We ’re enquire an publication touch users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services . ”

Overnight , it became clear that the egress was affect multiple serving around the world . In the U.S. , major airline including Delta , United , and American Airlines had flights ground , with outside carriers also bear upon . The Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA)said it is“closely monitor ” the IT outage , adding that “ several airlines have requested FAA assistance with flat coat stops until the take is resolved . ”

Australia ’s Sydney Airport was among those with flight presentation usher the fear blue covert of death .

Sydney Airport trajectory displays have all BSOD'd.#microsoft#crowdstrikepic.twitter.com / ZL9QwGdi1a

& mdash ; techAU ( @techAU)July 19 , 2024

Tech billionaire Elon Musk described it as the the “ big IT fail ever . ”

Biggest IT fail ever

— Elon Musk ( @elonmusk)July 19 , 2024

At 6:45 a.m. ET on Friday , Microsoft saidin a social media post that the “ underlying grounds has been fasten , ” but add that “ residual impact is go on to affect some Microsoft 365 apps and service . ”

Microsoft ’s monolithic mien in the IT sphere exposes it to spherical events like this . Last class , for example , widespread disruption impactedits Azure cloud computing political platform , along with tools such as the Outlook email and OneDrive file - sharing apps . The company put it down to distributed denial - of - service ( DDoS ) attacks , a malicious human action that attempts to pink out a waiter or internet by overmaster it with incoming cyberspace traffic .