Microsoft Blames EU For World’s Biggest IT Outage

A 2009 agreement insisted on by the European Commission meant that Microsoft could not make security changes that would have blocked the update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

Because of the 2009 agreement made to avoid a European competition investigation, multiple security providers were allowed to install software at the kernel level. I Photo: Kiwi128 Wikimedia Commons

Consequently, an estimated 8.5 million computers failed, according to the tech giant. Thousands of flights were delayed or canceled, leaving passengers stranded at airports worldwide, the UK's NHS service was affected, and contactless payments failed to work.

Microsoft has Windows Defender, an alternative to CrowdStrike.

However, because of the 2009 agreement made to avoid a European competition investigation, multiple security providers were allowed to install software at the kernel level.

The European Commission had been accusing Microsoft since the early 2000s of having an unfair advantage over other companies because of its popular Windows software.

Microsoft's main competitor, Apple, in 2020 blocked access to the kernel on its Mac computers, arguing it would improve security and reliability. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, a Microsoft spokesman said the company could not make a similar change because of the EU agreement.