A global computer outage that hit Microsoft’s Windows operating systems on Friday affected about 8.5 million computers, the company said Saturday.
That’s just Microsoft’s estimate, which states that the computer problem affected “less than 1% of all Windows computers,” according to a report published by the company.
“While this percentage is small, the economic and social impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by companies that manage many critical services,” Microsoft explained.
The computer failure, which affected transport services such as airports, media outlets and financial markets, was caused by a faulty update to the Microsoft Windows operating system, triggered by a computer solution from the North American cybersecurity group CrowdStrike.
On Friday, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz publicly apologized “to all organizations, groups and individuals who were impacted.”
As for Microsoft, business group vice president David Weston said the incident was “out of Microsoft’s control” and that hundreds of engineers and experts had been mobilized to help affected organizations.