Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike announced on Wednesday that a bug in a software update was responsible for the worldwide disruptions experienced by banks, retailers, and airlines last week.
CrowdStrike explained that the update was intended to collect new data on potential threats. However, an undetected bug in the update caused certain Windows operating systems to crash and display the “Blue Screen of Death.”
Approximately 8.5 million machines were affected, but the consequences were more extensive due to the reliance of other systems on these computers. Hospitals, government agencies, TV stations, banks, and airlines all experienced at least temporary disruptions.
As of Wednesday, some businesses were still not fully recovered from the downtime.
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CrowdStrike has made changes to its procedures to reduce the risk of future crashes. They will now stagger updates instead of deploying them globally at the same time and conduct more internal testing on updates to identify bugs before release.
Regulators are currently investigating CrowdStrike and the outage. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a federal investigation into Delta Air Lines, and lawmakers are requesting testimony from CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz regarding the incident.
“All too often these days, a single glitch leads to a system-wide outage affecting industries such as healthcare, airlines, banks, and auto dealers,” stated U.S. Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan on Sunday. “Millions of people and businesses suffer the consequences. These incidents highlight how concentration can result in fragile systems.”
