Microsoft blames the European Union for the recent huge computer outage
Up to 8.5 million Windows devices were affected by Friday's IT outage after Crowdstrike's antivirus update went awry. Microsoft says the European Union is to blame for the world's biggest IT outage on Friday following a faulty security update, writes Euronews.
Up to 8.5 million Windows devices were affected by the outage, Microsoft confirmed, saying it was less than 1 per cent of all machines using the software. However, it said, there had been major impacts because CrowdStrike is widely used by businesses.
Microsoft communications officials told the Wall Street Journal that the problem is a 2009 agreement that the European Commission insisted on. On the other hand, the spokeswoman from the commission highlighted that the system interruption did not occur only in the EU countries.
"Microsoft is of course free to decide its business model, so it is Microsoft's responsibility to adapt its security infrastructure to threats, but of course this must be done according to European competition legislation. On the other hand, consumers have the right to benefit from competition, and to choose between different security providers", said the spokeswoman of the European Commission, Lea Zuber.
Crowdstrike that caused an estimated 8.5 million computers to fail, the Big Tech giant said in comments to the Wall Street Journal newspaper.
Thousands of flights were delayed or cancelled, leaving passengers stranded at airports worldwide, the UK's NHS service was affected and contactless payments failed to work.
