A global technology outage, attributed to a glitch in a software update issued by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, wreaked havoc on airlines, health care systems, banks and scores of other businesses and services around the world on Friday. The disruption, which reached what some experts called “historic” proportions, was a stunning example of the global economy’s fragile dependence on certain software, and the cascading effect it can have when things go wrong.

The software update resulted in crashes of machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system. George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, said it was not a security incident or a cyberattack. He said a fix had been sent out but warned that it could take some time to be put in place.

Adam Satariano, et al.

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