“We estimate that CrowdStrike’s update impacted 8.5 million Windows devices, which is less than one percent of all Windows machines,” Microsoft stated in the post.
The software update from CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity firm, led to system issues that affected flights, disrupted broadcasters, and left customers without access to essential services such as healthcare and banking.
“Although the percentage of affected devices was small, the significant economic and societal impacts demonstrate the reliance on CrowdStrike by enterprises running critical services,” Microsoft mentioned in its blog post.
CrowdStrike has contributed to developing a solution to help Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure expedite a fix. Microsoft also noted that it is collaborating with Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform to share information about the outage’s effects across the industry.
The air travel industry was recovering from the outage on Saturday, which resulted in thousands of flight cancellations and left passengers stranded or facing long delays. Delta Air Lines, one of the most affected airlines, reported over 600 flight cancellations as of 10 a.m. on Saturday, with more expected to follow.