Crowdstrike blames defect in content update for massive global IT crash

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., the cybersecurity company at the center of massive global IT outages, said that a bug in a safety mechanism allowed flawed data to go out to customers in a botched update, causing last week’s meltdown.

The US company is trying to piece together the series of events that led to one of the most spectacular rolling IT failures the world has ever seen. The incident crashed Microsoft Windows computer systems around the world on Friday, taking down airline, banking and stock exchange operations from Australia and Japan to the UK.