IT outages have been reported globally, with emergency services, airlines, and banking systems down.
Six airports are closed at the time of writing, including Logan International, Harry Reid International, La Guardia, and others.
Some social media users believe the timing of the outage is significant.
“What kind of message does this send Americans about the upcoming election? It’s not a good one,” journalist Kyle Becker wrote.
According to a report from Wired, companies running Microsoft Windows saw the “Blue Screen of Death.” The issue impacted systems across the U.K., India, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S.
The U.S. Emergency Alerts System, ATMs, Social Security offices, FedEx, and other entities have reported issues and delays.
The outages have been linked to a software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue is “not a security incident or cyberattack,” adding that the issue has been “identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
In a subsequent post, Kurtz reiterated, “Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.”
Kurtz explained there was an “issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts.”
The Department of Homeland Security said it is working alongside the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to address the issues with Microsoft and CrowdStrike.
This is a breaking story.
