NHS hospital declares critical incident and airports in global chaos

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz confirmed that the issue was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts.” In short, it was a bug in a software update distributed to customers with Windows PCs.

CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity providers, providing companies with tools to combat viruses and defend against cyberattacks.

The error in the update caused numerous Windows PCs to crash, many showed the so-called “Blue Screen of Death” and were unusable.

The IT infrastructure of companies and institutions around the world collapsed, causing many companies and their online services to go offline.

The transport, financial and healthcare sectors were particularly hard hit; airlines and airports, rail transport, pharmacies and doctor’s offices and even the London Stock Exchange were affected.