Incident Reports

On July 19, 2024, a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused computers around the world to crash. The update affected systems running Microsoft Windows and caused many machines to display the “blue screen of death.” Microsoft estimated about 8.5 million computers were impacted. Airlines, banks, hospitals, and businesses experienced delays and service interruptions while systems were repaired. The event showed how a single update can affect millions of connected systems.

In late January 2026, TikTok and several related services, including the video editing app CapCut, experienced a widespread outage. Many users reported that videos would not load, uploads failed, and editing tools stopped working. The issue affected creators, businesses, and viewers who rely on the platform every day. Reports suggested the disruption was linked to backend service failures affecting multiple ByteDance platforms. The outage showed how closely connected large social media systems are—and how problems in one part of the system can quickly affect millions of users.