Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Global computer outage affects Windows computers

-

What experts described as the “biggest global IT outage in history” Thursday night and Friday morning disrupted airports, trains, hospitals, radio stations, and other places of business worldwide, The New York Times reports. The outage was caused by a faulty software update and was not due to a security incident or cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that issued the update.

The outage touched almost every industry, including schools and colleges. Multiple financial institutions, government entities, and corporations reported tech issues. Some school districts also said computers were down, and courthouses around the US either closed or delayed trial proceedings, The Wall Street Journal reported.

For example, servers within the Norwalk Public Schools district in Connecticut were affected Friday, according to a report in the Connecticut Insider. “Like many districts around the country today, Norwalk Public Schools faced partial server outages for a roughly three-hour period,” the district said in an email statement Friday.

It could take a while to fix all computers affected by the outage. Computers not connected to the cloud may require a physical fix to the error introduced by CrowdStrike, which could take weeks. An organization’s IT department will almost certainly need to step in, and CrowdStrike has posted technical instructions on how to get out of what is known as the Blue Screen of Death.

Paul Katulahttps://news.schoolsdo.org
Paul Katula is the executive editor of the Voxitatis Research Foundation, which publishes this blog. For more information, see the About page.

Recent Posts

Some IL superintendents report absenteeism increase

0
Some schools are reporting a momentary uptick in absenteeism, reportedly due to the president's recent executive order tied to immigration enforcement.

Digital Harbor HS closed after vandalism