What we know about the global Microsoft outage

Some computers that were not on during the software update appear to have avoided the issue, according to initial reports.

What caused it?

Cybersecurity programs like CrowdStrike’s frequently and automatically update themselves to account for new tactics that malicious hackers have discovered. And there’s always a slight risk that any software update will be incompatible with other programs.

CrowdStrike’s update should have been routine, but an error in its code conflicted with Windows and proved catastrophic.

The company’s CEO, George Kurtz, said Friday morning on the “TODAY” show that while some customers would see their computers fixed automatically, others would require manual work to fix.

“The system was sent an update, and that update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system,” Kurtz said. “Our systems are always looking for the latest attacks from these adversaries that are out there.”

How long until things go back to normal?

CrowdStrike identified the problem and issued a fix early Friday after the problem began to emerge.

The fix required affected computers to download another software update, which some have been able to do automatically.

Many companies and services affected by the chaos, such as the New Hampshire Department of Safety, which said its 911 system was briefly down, reported that they were back online by Friday morning. 

Others haven’t been able to load the update, which would potentially require IT workers at some companies to reboot and tinker with every single affected computer.

“Many of the customers are rebooting the system, and it’s coming up, and it’ll be operational because we fixed it on our end,” Kurtz said. “Some of the systems that aren’t recovering, we’re working with them. So it could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover.”