Metro Detroit residents — and people worldwide — had their Fridays brought to a halt as a software glitch affected airlines, government services, infrastructure, banks, healthcare, schools and more.
But how could this happen? And will it put a wrinkle in your day?
Here’s what to know:
What caused the global tech outage?
A major cybersecurity firm, Austin-based CrowdStrike, has blamed a defect in a system update that impacted Microsoft's Windows Operating System.
Specifically, Reuters reported that CrowdStrike's "Falcon Sensor" software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display what’s informally known as the "blue screen of death.”
More: Stuck at the airport after Microsoft outage? What to know about airline refunds, policies
What is CrowdStrike, the company behind the global tech outage?
The cybersecurity company describes itself in its Twitter bio with a hashtag: WeStopBreaches.
It boasts being “the first cloud-native platform that protects endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.”
It also boasted being used by over half of Fortune 500 companies in a promotional video this year, USA Today reported.
Is the global tech outage the result of a cyberattack?
The company behind the outage has said no.
The incident is "not a security incident or cyberattack," Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
How long will it take to fix the global tech outage?
Technically a fix has been deployed. That’s according to Kurtz.
Microsoft, too, has stated "the underlying cause has been fixed," but residual impacts will affect some of its Microsoft 365 apps and services, USA Today reported.
Mac and Linux systems are not impacted, Kurtz said.
How is the global tech outage affecting airlines?
Airlines were brought to a halt but are slowly resuming services.
Delta had announced a pause in flights around 4 a.m. due to a technology issue, but as of 8 a.m. said some flight departures had resumed. Still, it warned that there may be other cancellations and delays.
Similarly, United Airlines and American Airlines announced resuming operations Friday morning.
There were 1,553 cancellations within, into or out of the U.S. by 10:30 a.m. Friday, and 2,627 globally, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
Additionally, there were 4,180 flight delays within, into or out of the U.S. and 26,322 globally.
At the Detroit Metro Airport, there were 114 cancellations and 176 delays.
What else was impacted by the global tech outage?
Traffic was slowed at the Ambassador Bridge to Canada; Comerica Bank was impacted overnight but said “critical systems are healthy;” Corewell Health hospital system reported disruptions; and Henry Ford College in Dearborn closed for the day.
More: Global Microsoft outage causes delays at Detroit Metro Airport, businesses, banks
Additionally, some government systems were impacted.
The Michigan Department of Treasury said call centers for collections and special taxes were down and restoration was not immediately available.
Nationally, several state and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. reported issues at 911 call centers, USA Today reported.
USA Today and Staff writers Kristen Jordan Shamus, Susan Tompor and Liam Rappleye contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Global outage impact's Michigan airports, government: 6 key questions
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