What to Know
- Microsoft products worldwide went offline overnight Friday due after an issue with an update to cybersecurity program CrowdStrike. It was not a cyberattack.
- Flights were grounded, health systems’ technology went offline and Metro’s website went down, causing ripple effects for hours after a fix was deployed.
- Services slowly rebooted and were pressed back into service throughout Friday, but recovery work remains.
Live local coverage of the impact of the Crowdstrike software debacle has ended. A look at impacts can be found below. You can read more about the global impact here.
A widespread Microsoft outage linked to a cybersecurity software disrupted business-as-usual worldwide Friday morning. In the Washington, D.C., area, dozens of flights were delayed, Metro's website went offline and News4 Today was stalled.
The outage is linked to a recent update from the company CrowdStrike, which said it deployed a fix for the issue. CEO George Kurtz said the outages were not from a security incident or cyberattack.
Crowdstrike's Falcon platform is like a defense system for IT infrastructure. The cloud-based software will work to automatically stop malicious code or other issues immediately instead of simply notifying a company to address the issue. Here's an explainer on how Crowdstrike works.
Systems continued to slowly come back online throughout Friday but the software mishap will have lasting effects over the next few days – particularly for air travel. Here's a look at the impacts to the DC area from Friday:
