About this episode
On Friday, more than 8.5 million Microsoft computers around the world shut down. The tech outage threw our most essential systems into chaos. Airlines delayed or canceled flights. Hospitals turned away non-emergency patients. Banks, businesses, courts, government offices – all were faced with blank, inactive computer screens that many cal the “blue screen of death.” The culprit? A software update pushed to Windows devices by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Host Elahe Izadi speaks with technology reporter Joseph Menn about what happened inside CrowdStrike, and what this incident tells us about the state of the cybersecurity industry. Today’s show was produced by Ali Bianco, with help from Sabby Robinson and Trinity Webster-Bass. It was edited by Reena Flores and Ariel Plotnick and mixed by Sean Carter. Thanks to James Graff. Subscribe to The Washington Post here .