In a blog post on Saturday, Microsoft revealed that a global tech outage linked to a software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O) impacted nearly 8.5 million of its devices.
The company stated, “We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, which is less than one percent of all Windows machines.”
CrowdStrike’s software update, from one of the largest players in the cybersecurity industry, led to system issues that disrupted flights, caused broadcasting outages, and left customers unable to access services including healthcare and banking.
Microsoft noted in its blog post that while the affected percentage was small, the widespread economic and societal impacts highlight the critical role CrowdStrike plays for enterprises that manage essential services.
CrowdStrike has developed a solution to assist Microsoft in accelerating a fix for its Azure infrastructure. Microsoft also mentioned that it was collaborating with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, sharing information about the industry-wide effects of the disruption.
The air travel industry was recovering on Saturday from the outage, which led to thousands of flight cancellations and left passengers stranded or facing significant delays as airports and airlines dealt with the IT issues. Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), one of the most impacted airlines, reported that by 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Saturday, over 600 flights had been canceled, with further cancellations anticipated.