WASHINGTON — Airlines, banks, hospitals, and other organizations worldwide faced disruptions on Friday due to a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. This incident grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted services in hospitals and retailers.

The update, affecting computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, was not a hacking incident or cyberattack, CrowdStrike confirmed. The company apologized and promised a fix, though it required manual intervention to resolve.

“What really causes this mess is that we rely on very few companies, and everybody uses the same folks, so everyone goes down at the same time,” said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University.

CrowdStrike, known for its Falcon platform, is a leading cybersecurity provider in sectors like transportation, healthcare, and banking. These risk-averse organizations depend on CrowdStrike to protect their systems.

“This is what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time,” wrote Australian cybersecurity consultant Troy Hunt.

Founded in 2011 and publicly traded since 2019, CrowdStrike boasts 29,000 subscribing customers. The company emphasizes its use of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity and is known for its visibility and marketing efforts, including Super Bowl ads.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, one of the highest-paid in the industry, apologized for the incident on social media and NBC’s "Today Show."

“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption,” he said.

Cybersecurity analyst Richard Stiennon called this a historic mistake for CrowdStrike, noting the challenge of fixing millions of affected machines. Despite this, he believes the market and customers will forgive the company.

Forrester analyst Allie Mellen credited CrowdStrike for its clear communication but stressed the need for a deeper review to prevent future issues.

“A lot of this is likely to come down to the testing and software development process,” Mellen said. “But until we see the complete retrospective, we won’t know for sure what the failure was.” — Agencies