CrowdStrike identifies cause of Microsoft outage and reveals exactly when it will be fixed

CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm , has issued a statement following a technical glitch with their technology that led to massive outages worldwide. Airports, railways, doctor surgeries, banks, and TV stations globally experienced disruptions on Friday when their systems were abruptly forced offline.

CrowdStrike, which offers security protection for cloud software including the Microsoft 365 platform , identified a corrupted update file on Windows machines as the source of the problems and confirmed they are now implementing a fix.

CEO George Kurtz stated: "CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.

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"The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they're communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."

Microsoft earlier confirmed that it was aware of and fixing issues with its widely used cloud platform, Azure.

Around the world, banks, supermarkets and other major institutions reported computer issues disrupting services, while many businesses have been left unable to take digital payments. Systems have been down at London Gatwick, leaving barcodes unable to be read by machines, with Berlin airport among many in Europe citing delays due to a "technical fault".

United and Delta - which are all based in the US - have issued a "global ground stop" on all of their flights.