A massive tech outage is causing worldwide disruptions. Here's what we know

Much of the world faced online disarray Friday as a widespread technology outage affected companies and services across industries — grounding flights, knocking banks and hospital systems offline and media outlets off air. At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows — with the company noting that the issue was not a security incident or cyberattack. Scores of companies rely on CrowdStrike for their security needs. That makes the consequences of a faulty update, like the one CrowdStrike cited Friday, all the more far-reaching.