The leader of one of the largest cybersecurity enterprises in the world has apologized after a faulty software update apparently brought global airline industries and many online transactions to a grinding halt.
Before 6 a.m. on Friday, George Kurtz — CEO of Texas-based cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike — took to social media to acknowledge that “a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” had led to a major breakdown in Microsoft operations.
As a result, more than 18,000 flights from around the world were grounded, 1,200 in the U.S. alone, according to joint reporting from The Hill and the AP. Banks and 911 dispatch stations were also thrown offline. Even the Sphere in Las Vegas was affected, projecting the dreaded “blue screen of death” into the night sky.
While CrowdStrike’s update issue may have inconvenienced millions of people worldwide, it is apparently not the work of malicious actors, at least according to Kurtz. “This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” he insisted.
Neither Mac nor Linux systems was affected by the issue, Kurtz noted.
In follow-up statements to the media, Kurtz became emotional as he apologized for causing everyone so much trouble. “We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this,” he told NBC’s “Today.”
According to Kurtz, the initial problem has been fixed. However, the reverberating effects of the issue are much more complex and therefore much more difficult to address, he said.
“Sometimes, some systems won’t automatically recover,” he said.
“We’re not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were.”
As of mid-morning on Friday, several major U.S. airports — including Logan Airport in Boston, LaGuardia in New York City, and the Las Vegas airport formally known as McCarran — reported significant closures. Flights at other airports such as Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta were delayed by as much as six hours.
The FAA professes to be “closely monitoring” the situation.
“The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines,” the aviation agency tweeted at 5:50 a.m. on Friday. “Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved. Monitor http://fly.faa.gov for updates.”
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