What transpired with Microsoft during the worldwide computer disaster, and why did it fail?

A computer glitch has affected important services around the world, disrupting public transportation connections, delaying international flights, and restricting the operations of healthcare facilities and companies. Here’s what you need to know Crowdstrike, Microsoft and the affected airlines:

The outage appears to be due, at least in part, to a software update issued by Crowdstrike on Microsoft Windows systems. The U.S. cybersecurity firm told customers early Friday that engineers were addressing the problem, according to a notice seen by CNN. The problem is specific to Falcon, which is designed to protect files stored in the cloud.

Microsoft said the «underlying cause» of the outage «has been resolved,» adding that the residual impact still affects some services. «We are conducting additional mitigations to provide relief,» the technology company said in a posting on X. Some services have been restored, but others are still dealing with outages.

Global banks, medical services and critical infrastructure have been affected by the outage. Medical service providers, including the UK’s National Health Service and one of Europe’s largest healthcare facilities in northern Germany, have been choked by IT service delays. Meanwhile, banks, broadcasters and supermarkets in Australia, New Zealand and the UK were affected, including ABC News and Sky News.

As American and other foreign airlines in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East were forced to postpone and cancel flights on Friday, scenes of anxious customers clogged the halls of major airports. Preliminary data from aviation analytics company Cirium given with CNN indicates that there are presently around 110,000 scheduled commercial flights globally. There were 1,390 canceled flights globally as of 6 a.m. ET. That number is rising.

The White House claims to be «investigating» the inconvenience that the cyber disruptions on Friday morning created. «We are aware of the incident and are looking into the cause and consequences of the issue,» a White House National Security Council spokesperson told CNN. The British government convened an emergency conference to talk about the outage in the interim.