The Dreaded ‘Blue Screen of Death’ Hits Windows Systems Across the Globe Amid Major IT Outage

Companies across the world are suffering an IT outage that affects Windows operating systems.


Flights have been canceled, banking halted, and commerce, healthcare, and travel delayed amid one of the most significant global IT outages ever. TV studios were even forced to pause broadcasting,

CrowdStrike cooked SkyNews. They're trying to do the news with no computers. pic.twitter.com/JhV3khULV2

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) July 19, 2024

The outage has to do with a “defect” in Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike’s software, which has had the knock-on effect of causing the dreaded 'Blue Screen of Death' to appear on monitors across the globe.


"This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Crowdstrike said. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

However, it will take some time before the outage is resolved, causing chaos today, July 19, 2024.


Crowdstrike blamed the issue on one of its updates for Windows. Shares in the company were down by more than 20% in unofficial trading in the U.S., amounting to an incredible $16 billion loss in value. Microsoft also suffered a drop in value in premarket trading, although by a more modest 2%.

Meanwhile, the internet is of course having its fun with the outage, and the memes are already flooding in.

Microsoft right now. pic.twitter.com/5AA5YuseR5

— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) July 19, 2024
IT teams waking up this morning pic.twitter.com/MS76Lo80zV

— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) July 19, 2024
happy international bluescreen day😍 pic.twitter.com/caAvytQyS9

— sxchopea (@sxchopea) July 19, 2024
Live scenes in every IT department after the Microsoft outage pic.twitter.com/k01HN5Z2eK

— LADbible (@ladbible) July 19, 2024
Cause of global IT outage: pic.twitter.com/8rPP2LmAZM

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) July 19, 2024

George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, issued a statement, below:


Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

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