A bad update by security provider CrowdStrike caused massive systems outages globally on Friday July 19, crippling operations by banks, airlines, trains, healthcare providers, businesses, and other institutions relying on Microsoft Windows.
The update caused affected machines to crash to the infamous Windows “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD) error message upon boot, rendering them unusable.
In the midst of the chaos, humorous memes flooded the Internet.
Here are a some of them from around the Web:
























Companies like rival Kaspersky, KitKat, and Jobstreet Philippines also rode the wave and released materials capitalizing on the trend.



Even the Ateneo Human Rights Center, a university-based institution engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights in the Philippines, went along and released material of its own.

A number of Philippine institutions released statements over the disruption.




CrowdStrike President and CEO George Kurtz released a statement on X.com to address the incident, but was met with outrage over an apparent lack of apology and with more memes in the comments section of his tweet:
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
Kurtz apologized in a later tweet:
Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can…
Fixes for affected systems can be found at the CrowdStrike website. For affected Microsoft Azure virtual machines, recovery solutions are posted at the Azure website.