According to CCTV News, Microsoft announced on July 20th local time that there were "defects" in the software updates released by the American computer security technology company "CrowdStrike" for the Microsoft Windows system. The resulting malfunctions are estimated to have affected nearly 8.5 million devices worldwide that have installed the system. Microsoft stated that the company "Zhongdao" has developed a solution to accelerate fault repair.
Starting from 19:00 Greenwich Mean Time on the 18th (03:00 Beijing Time on the 19th), Microsoft Windows systems in many parts of the world went down due to a security software update, resulting in a "blue screen". Multiple industries such as aviation, healthcare, media, finance, retail, and logistics were affected. According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, as of around noon Eastern Time on the 20th, there have been approximately 23000 flight delays in the United States.