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The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 370 points on Friday afternoon as one of the biggest global tech outages ever affected the travel, finance, and healthcare industries. Shares of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike fell almost 11%, while Intel stock dropped more than 5%.
In the afternoon, the Dow slipped 369 points, or 0.91%, to 40,295. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were both down by 0.5%.
What happened to computer systems?
Computer systems at businesses around the world failed after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike bungled an update and Microsoft reported issues with its Azure cloud service.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz wrote Friday morning on X. “This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”
Meanwhile, Microsoft users across the world were grappling with the “Blue Screen of Death,” posting pictures of their frozen screens online as they were left unable to access corporate laptops and computers. In a statement online, Microsoft said the issue was caused by an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software, which is designed to protect against malware and “much more.”
Microsoft later said that the “underlying cause of the issue” had been fixed, adding that several Microsoft 365 apps had been fully restored, including OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. But some apps and services were suffering from residual impact.
CrowdStrike stock sinks 11% and flights are delayed
A defective software update at CrowdStrike led to a massive internet outage that took entire industries worldwide offline Friday. The Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity technology company, which provides software to tens of thousands of companies, also took a hit to its stock. The firm’s shares were down 11%, trading at $304 a piece.
More than 23,900 flights around the world had been delayed Friday morning, according to FlightAware, which tracks global flights. That includes more than 3,260 domestic U.S. flights and flights entering or departing U.S. airspace. Another 2,320 have been canceled, including 1,346 involving the U.S.
—Rocio Fabbro and William Gavin contributed to this article