Global IT outage blacks out Times Square billboards in NYC

NEW YORK, US - JULY 19, 2024: A global IT outage at Microsoft on Friday (July 19) led to a major global disruption, causing the “blue screen of death” errors for users across Europe and in New York’s Times Square. Later several screen turned black at Times Square due to the worldwide outage. The incident, triggered by a recent update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has affected various critical sectors including airports, airlines, businesses, media outlets, and stock exchanges. In addition to the widespread European impact, the outage also resulted in blue screen errors appearing on some digital billboards in Times Square, New York. The “blue screen of death,” a common term for critical system errors, became visible to passersby as a direct consequence of the global communication failure. Microsoft confirmed that the IT failure stemmed from an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software, which is part of the company’s cybersecurity infrastructure. This update inadvertently led to a substantial IT outage, affecting both Microsoft services and numerous other businesses. “We’re aware of an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software,” Microsoft announced on its 365 Status X account. The tech giant advised affected users to “restore their Windows 365 Cloud PC to a known good state prior to the release of the update (July 19, 2024)” and provided guidance for this restoration process through online instructions.(Footage by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)