A sweeping global tech outage has thrown operations into disarray across multiple industries, impacting airlines, broadcasters, and essential services such as banking and healthcare. The disruption, attributed to issues with Microsoft Windows linked to CrowdStrike’s “Falcon Sensor” software, has resulted in widespread crashes, including the notorious “Blue Screen of Death.”

The ramifications have reverberated worldwide, affecting businesses in New Zealand, where local councils, banks, and emergency services like St John and Wellington Free Ambulance reported significant disruptions. Both ambulance services were forced to resort to manual methods like VHF radios and handwritten notes to manage communications amid the outage. New Zealand’s Acting Prime Minister David Seymour confirmed that services had resumed normal operations by late evening after initial delays.

Internationally, the outage has led to grounded flights, disrupted broadcasts, and operational setbacks in numerous sectors. Airlines in the U.S. and Europe faced extensive cancellations and delays, with airports such as Zurich’s largest reporting restrictions on landings.

CrowdStrike, impacted by the outage, saw its shares drop nearly 15 percent on Nasdaq, marking a $12.5 billion decline in market value, according to reports. Despite deploying a fix, analysts like tech expert Peter Griffin warned that restoring full functionality would require extensive manual interventions throughout the weekend across global enterprises.

Griffin characterized the incident as possibly the largest IT outage in recent history, underscoring its profound economic and operational implications. “You have people stranded in airports, you have people not able to sell groceries,” Griffin remarked, highlighting the widespread disruptions affecting everyday activities.

The financial toll of the outage is expected to run into billions of dollars, exposing critical vulnerabilities in global tech infrastructures and prompting urgent reassessments of resilience and contingency planning.

As organizations worldwide work tirelessly to recover from the unprecedented disruption, the event serves as a stark reminder of the indispensable role of stable IT frameworks and proactive mitigation strategies in safeguarding against such unforeseen challenges.