Cyber Resiliency: CrowdStrike Outage Highlights Challenges

In July 2024, a software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused Microsoft Windows operating systems to crash—resulting in potentially one of the largest IT outages in history. The outage disrupted critical infrastructure operations by grounding commercial flights and interrupting critical hospital care, among other impacts. CrowdStrike’s investigation of the incident found that a faulty security update caused widespread system failures, affecting millions of Windows systems.