What is an outage? CrowdStrike, Microsoft issue has people wondering

A global tech outage wreaked havoc on business and public service sectors on Friday morning.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike attributed the incident to a faulty system update that impacted Miscrosoft M365 users across the world.

Globally, CrowdStrike customers were victims to a blue error screen, also known as the "blue screen of death," causing problems for banks, public transportation, health systems and more.

The server issue grounded flights across the country and impacted nearly every airport — including Atlantic City and Philadelphia.

What is an outage?

CrowdStrike's CEO George Kurtz explained on X, formerly Twitter, that the outage was caused by an issue with a system update.

But what is an outage?

An outage refers to a period when a system or service is unavailable or non-operational.

For end users, an outage means they are unable to access or use the service, which can disrupt activities, like buying things online, checking their bank accounts or just surfing the web.

For providers, such as CrowdStrike, an outage means that their infrastructure or systems have failed, preventing them from delivering their services. The websites that use that service to manage their sites can see issues that limit how they conduct business online.

This can lead to delays in operations, affect user experience, and may require technical fixes to restore functionality.

Kurtz apologized for the inconvenience and ensured that the outage was not due to any sort of security or cyberattack issue and that a solution had been deployed Friday morning.

Kaitlyn McCormick writes about trending issues and community news across South Jersey for the Courier-Post, The Daily Journal and the Burlington County Times. If you have a story she should tell, email her at kmccormick@gannett.com. And subscribe to stay up to date on the news you need.