Large parts of the world are on fire - metaphorically speaking at least, but I’d not rule out a literal interpretation entirely - as a bug in some software from Crowdstrike has inadvertently ruined the operations of various institutions from the worlds of banking, travel, healthcare and beyond. You might not even get paid on time as some payroll processes failed.
What is Crowdstrike? Well, per the BBC:
Crowdstrike is known for producing antivirus software, intended to prevent hackers from causing this very type of disruption.
Whoops.
Apparently they fixed whatever is wrong, but each and every affected device needs to be individually, manually, seen to.
One solution that is apparently worth trying is the same one that fixes almost every other computer issue.
Microsoft is advising clients to try a classic method to get things working - turning it off and on again - in some cases up to 15 times.
We just need the whole world to turn their computers of and on again 15 times.
Crowdstrike last reported having only 24,000 customers. World-disrupting incidents like this just highlight how fragile the way we’ve arranged our technology to operate in can be.