By: Nina He

What can cancel 1,500 flights, including all of the flights in the U.S., make thousands of Windows computers crash, stop hundreds of people from going to the UK, and hundreds more from leaving?
A system failure. Specifically, an IT system failure.

IT—or Information Technology—is vital to the functioning of the modern world and and helps with data and supply chain management while ensuring efficient communication, customer support, remote work and data security.

A glitch in one of these systems caused all Windows computers to stop working. The owner of Windows, Microsoft, said that the blame lies with a third-party software company: a cybersecurity company called CrowdStrike. The company admitted their mistake—a bug in their system—and said they had since fixed the bug. But, it might be “some time” before everything returns to normal.

The CEO of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz, said, “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
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Planes and computers weren’t the only devices that were affected. People across the UK had reported that they couldn’t book any doctor appointments.

The Range Medical Centre in Manchester said that they couldn’t access any health records.

The doctors and nurses said they had to write prescriptions out by hand, and many appointments were canceled while several surgeries and treatments were delayed as a result.

Needless to say, the effects of the IT system failure were wide-reaching. With our dependence and reliance on IT, preventing this from happening again is vital to keep our modern world moving.

Image Credit by Anna Shvets