CrowdStrike’s software update affected an estimated 8.5 million computers, with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) among the hardest hit. General Practitioners (GPs) were left scrambling as they were unable to access vital patient information, forcing many to revert to using pen and paper—a process that caused dangerous delays in treatment.
Dr. David Wrigley, a GP of 22 years, describes the chaos during this period as “very difficult” and “without much support.” He recalls that crucial services, such as cancer treatment referrals, were delayed by several days due to the outage. “All the referrals we do are done electronically,” Dr. Wrigley told the BBC, “but that couldn’t happen.”
The British Medical Association (BMA) described July 19 as one of the most challenging days in recent memory for GPs across England, as the EMIS system—used for managing appointments, records, and prescriptions—was rendered unusable. Dr. Wrigley’s practice in Lancashire faced ongoing technical difficulties even after the initial crash, further complicating efforts to catch up on vital tasks like patient referrals.
The disruption wasn’t limited to the healthcare sector. Airlines worldwide were forced to ground planes, as critical computer systems necessary for flight operations were impacted. The financial toll on small businesses was equally severe, with some reporting thousands in lost sales due to paralyzed payment systems.
Adam Meyers, a senior executive at CrowdStrike, is set to testify before the US Congress on Tuesday to explain what went wrong and how the company plans to prevent future incidents of this scale. The hearing is highly anticipated as the world watches closely to see how one of the leading names in cybersecurity could allow such a disaster to unfold.
For businesses, patients, and GPs, the damage is done. As they continue to pick up the pieces, the global IT outage of July 19 serves as a stark reminder of how dependent the modern world has become on its digital systems—and how vulnerable those systems can be.
The July 19 outage stands as one of the most significant IT failures of the decade, revealing a fragile global digital infrastructure that, when disrupted, has far-reaching consequences across industries and sectors. Whether in healthcare, air travel, or small business operations, the world is still recovering from the outage’s devastating effects, and all eyes are now on CrowdStrike for answers.
