Shares of Crowdstrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) experienced significant dips during Friday pre-market after a worldwide Windows crash instigated by a Crowdstrike update.
What Happened: According to Benzinga Pro, on Friday, Crowdstrike's stock plummeted nearly 13%, trading at $298.80 pre-market, a significant drop from Thursday's close of $343.05. Microsoft also experienced a pre-market dip of 1.97%, trading at $431.70, down from $440.37 at Thursday's close.
The sudden drop is attributed to a recent Crowdstrike update that caused Windows laptops worldwide to crash, exhibiting the notorious "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) and leaving them unable to reboot. The problem has been linked to a file named "csagent.sys," disrupting critical services.
The incident coincides with a widespread outage of Microsoft's cloud services, impacting banks, airlines, and broadcasters globally. Crowdstrike has recognized the issue and is reportedly working on a solution, as per The Register.
However, Crowdstrike's advisory on the matter is only accessible to its customers, leaving many Windows users in the dark about the ongoing situation. The Falcon Sensor, designed to protect systems from cyber threats, is ironically being identified as the threat itself.
Why It Matters: This incident led to the grounding and cancellation of flights for several airlines, including Frontier Group Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:ULCC), Allegiant Travel Company (NASDAQ:ALGT), and Sun Country Airlines (NASDAQ:SNCY). The disruption significantly impacted the operations of several airlines, adding to the woes of the tech giants.
Windows users across the world have been posting pictures of their blue Windows screen on social media. Akshay Kothari, co-founder of Notion took to X to post about the outage causing significant disruption in Indian airports.
"I got my first hand-written boarding pass today," Kothari wrote.
The Microsoft / CrowdStrike outage has taken down most airports in India. I got my first hand-written boarding pass today pic.twitter.com/xsdnq1Pgjr
— Akshay Kothari (@akothari) July 19, 2024
Troy Hunt, who works as an independent regional director for Microsoft voiced his concerns about the incident, likening it to the feared Y2K bug.
"This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it's actually happened this time," he wrote.
This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it's actually happened this time
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) July 19, 2024
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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Pooja Rajkumari