Windows Blue Screen of Death crisis: what we know so far

Businesses across the globe are being affected by a serious issue caused by what appears to be a faulty security update from CrowdStrike which is causing Windows machines to encounter the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) – and that’s having a major knock-on effect where airlines, online services and even TV channels are failing.

Obviously, this has caused a huge amount of concern around the world. The issue was first noticed by Australian businesses as computers running Windows went offline, and the issue is now being detected in Europe. 

Sky News in the UK went down for a while, and popular airline Ryanair has posted that “We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a Global 3rd party IT outage, which is entirely out of our control. Booking and check-in are currently unavailable.”  Ryanair recommends that people who are due to travel today check in at the airport, rather than trying to do so online.

We have a live blog collecting all the developing news as it hits, and we’ll be updating this page with everything we know about the issue and how it might affect you.

This story is developing

What’s happening?

Millions of companies around the world rely on Windows PCs, and in the early hours of July 19, widespread reports started coming in that many of these PCs that major companies use were encountering ‘blue screen of death’ errors, taking services and systems offline.

For anyone who has used a Windows PC over the past 40 years, you’ll know that a blue screen of death (BSOD) error can be pretty nasty – it essentially forces the computer to stop what it’s doing and the only thing you can do is reboot the PC and hope that the problem doesn’t occur again. If it does, then the PC is in a pretty bad shape, and you’ll need to do some troubleshooting to try to fix the BSOD error.

This can be extremely frustrating for individuals who find their Windows 11 PC or laptop can no longer run – but when the PCs used by hospitals, airlines and banks start getting affected, things can get really bad. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case here.

Who is affected?

So, who is affected by this BSOD outage? So far it looks like a heck of a lot – with major businesses around the globe getting hit – and that means thousands, if not millions, of customers, patients and anyone relying on these services will be affected.

This could mean hospital appointments are cancelled, or trains or airplanes delayed. The knock-on effect could be very severe.

So far, it doesn’t seem like personal Windows 11 PCs are being affected – I’m writing this news story on one, and so far it seems fine. These are the companies and institutions that have confirmed they are affected so far:

• Microsoft
• Microsoft 365
• BetMGM
• Amazon
• Visa
• Sainsbury’s
• Tesco
• RyanAir
• Sky News UK (back on air)

• BT
• Ladbrokes
• Santander
• Nationwide
• Royal Mail
• Southern Rail (UK)

• Swiss International Air Lines

•  National Pharmacy Association (UK)
• Schleswig-Holstein university hospital (Germany)
• Berlin BER airport
• KLM

• Delta (US)
• United (US)
• American Airlines (US)

Why has this happened?

We’re still not entirely sure what has caused this, but it appears to be affecting Windows devices used by businesses.

Early reports suggest that cyber security firm CrowdStrike may be to blame by pushing out a security update for its product that features a bug.

In a message on its customer support website, CrowdStrike says “We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions.”

When will it be fixed?

It could take a while to sort this mess out, but CrowdStrike has said it has identified a “content deployment related to this issue and reverted those changes.” This supports the theory that it was caused by a bug in an update – and we’re pretty sure there is going to be a lot of pressure on CrowdStrike employees to come up with a fix, as well as IT admins for businesses across the globe.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has confirmed with Tom Warren of the Verge that it is aware of the issue and that it expects a fix soon.

So, we don’t have a clear idea of how long this will last, but CrowdStrike has issued workaround steps for anybody experiencing this problem:

1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
3. Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it
4. Boot the host normally

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