CrowdStrike's Blue Screen of Death issue affected 8.5 million Windows devices, less than 1% of the total

Due to an update distributed by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike on July 18, 2024, a blue screen of death (BSOD) occurred on PCs around the world using CrowdStrike products. The impact extended to public transportation, and some airlines began issuing airline tickets by hand. However, while the impact was visible in many areas, according to Microsoft, only 8.5 million Windows devices were affected, which is less than 1% of all Windows devices.

Falcon Content Update Remediation and Guidance Hub | CrowdStrike

Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage - The Official Microsoft Blog

At approximately 4:09 UTC on Friday, July 19, 2024 (13:09 JST), a logic error occurred due to a sensor configuration update for Windows systems released by CrowdStrike, causing affected systems to experience a BSOD.

The crashes were particularly likely to occur on devices that were online within 1 hour and 18 minutes of the update being released, running Windows version 7.11 or higher, and running CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor.

The time-lapse video below shows how BSOD caused numerous flight cancellations and delays in the US.

12-hour timelapse of American Airlines, Delta, and United plane traffic after what was likely the biggest IT outage in history forced a nationwide ground stop of the three airlines. pic.twitter.com/wwcQeiEtVe

— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) July 19, 2024

All information terminals at Sydney International Airport stopped working due to a BSOD.

Sydney Airport flight displays have all BSOD'd. #microsoft #crowdstrike pic.twitter.com/ZL9QwGdi1a

— techAU (@techAU) July 19, 2024

Microsoft worked around the clock with CrowdStrike to help develop guidance for safely bringing systems back online.

Microsoft explains that while software updates can cause problems, serious incidents like the one with CrowdStrike are rare.

The company also said that 8.5 million devices were affected, which is less than 1% of all Windows devices. However, the extent of the social and economic impact of this small percentage of devices shows how much CrowdStrike is used by companies that operate many important services.

By the way, Southwest Airlines was not affected by the CrowdStrike problem because it used Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 on its systems.

Windows 3.1 saves the day during CrowdStrike outage — Southwest Airlines scrapes by with archaic OS | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-31-saves-the-day-during-crowdstrike-outage

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