Global Windows outage estimated to cost Earth multiple billions

The CrowdStrike update that struck down approximately 8.5 million Windows PCs may cost billions and billions of dollars for affected companies.

Global Windows outage estimated to cost Earth multiple billions
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Tech and Science Editor
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A week ago, CrowdStrike rolled out an update that caused approximately 8.5 million Windows machines worldwide to enter infinite boot loops.

Global Windows outage estimated to cost Earth multiple billions 6556165

The global IT outage has been described as the largest in history and is being directly compared to the historic Y2K scare. The CrowdStrike outage was a result of a faulty kernel driver update being rolled out CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor security software, and, unfortunately, the faulty update caused a kernel-level malfunction that required physical intervention for remediation.

The outage affected numerous industries around the globe, such as airlines, supermarkets, telecommunications systems, point-of-sale systems, emergency services, and various other businesses. Now, we are starting to hear the first estimations of the amount of money lost due to Windows machines being down, with cloud monitoring and insurance company Parametrix estimating a fourth of the Fortune 500 companies were affected by the outage.

That fourth took an estimated hit of $5.4 billion, and that insurance may not even cover it all as Parametrix estimates a payout will only amount to $540 million to $1.1 billion. Why? Parametrix says the limited insurance payout is "due to many companies' large risk retentions, and to low policy limits relative to the potential outage loss."

So, what industries were hit the hardest?

  • Manufacturing - $10s of millions
  • Transportation (excluding airlines) - $10s of millions
  • Finance - $10s of millions
  • Retail - $500 million
  • IT - $500 million
  • Airlines - $860 million
  • Banking / Healthcare - $3 billion

Parametrix CEO Jonatan Hatzor told Reuters the estimated global financial loss as a result of the outage is around $15 billion, and global insured losses could be between $1.5 - $3

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Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms.

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