CrowdStrike confirms 85 million Windows devices affected by IT outage

Microsoft says the outage was caused by a "hardware failure"

CrowdStrike has confirmed that an IT outage that occurred on Monday affected approximately 85 million Windows devices. According to Microsoft, the outage was caused by a "hardware failure" that disrupted the company's telemetry service. The telemetry service is used to collect data from Windows devices and send it back to Microsoft for analysis. This data is used to improve the security and performance of Windows devices.

The outage began around 10:00 AM PST on Monday and lasted for several hours. During this time, users were unable to receive updates from Windows Update or send data back to Microsoft. The outage also affected other Microsoft services that rely on the telemetry service, such as Windows Defender and Microsoft Intune.

Microsoft has since resolved the outage and the telemetry service is now back online. The company is still investigating the cause of the hardware failure. In the meantime, Microsoft recommends that users restart their Windows devices to ensure that they are receiving the latest updates.