How Windows 95 saved companies from the global IT meltdown

Last Friday, there was a worldwide IT system outage that took down millions of computers around the world. It was so catastrophic that it’s been labeled as the largest IT meltdown of all time.

Due to a faulty update pushed by cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike, numerous Windows systems crashed and couldn’t boot back up due to an infinite loop of blue screens, restarts, and more blue screens.

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The problem has since been largely resolved, but the impact is still being felt as the CrowdStrike incident caused outages in air traffic control, hospitals, emergency services, freight dispatch, and more.

However, some companies were reportedly unaffected for one curious reason: they weren’t using modern software, instead running their computers on Windows 95 or even older systems.

One US airline wasn’t affected thanks to 32-year-old operating system

While almost every flight in the US had to be cancelled due to the CrowdStrike incident, at least one airline was able to avoid the outage—Southwest Airlines reported no problems with its operations.

According to reports, large parts of Southwest’s systems are based on Windows 95 and Windows 3.1. The latter is over 32 years old and therefore more than just a little outdated. Windows 95 is no longer up to date either, but the airline doesn’t seem to care.

In the meantime, an alleged tweet from Southwest Airlines made the rounds, saying: “Well, well, well. Look who needs ol’ Southwest Airlines now because all of our systems run on a single Commodore 64 in a warehouse in Arlington. Go to hell.”

However, it’s now known that this tweet was a fake. Nevertheless, the message went viral.

Saarland and Russia were also spared

It isn’t only US airlines that don’t seem to want to keep up with the times when it comes to modern software. In Saarland, for example, only a few systems are said to have been affected by the outages, as the authorities also rely on outdated Windows versions.

There are also likely to have been few system failures in Russia, as the country has not received any American products since the start of the war in Ukraine. The CrowdStrike update was also not installed on their systems, as reported by Business Insider, among others.

Luck in misfortune

In general, outdated software versions and IT systems are considered to be particularly vulnerable when it comes to system breakdowns and hacking attacks. In this particular case, however, companies that rely on outdated software were exceptionally lucky.

Above all, the CrowdStrike incident shows how closely interconnected the world’s systems are and how fragile they can be. A single vulnerability or error is enough to affect millions of people around the world.

This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.

Author: Laura Pippig, Staff Writer, PC-WELT

Laura is an enthusiastic gamer as well as a movie and TV fan. After studying communication science, she went straight into a job at PCMagazin and Connect Living. Since then, she has been writing about everything to do with PCs and technology topics, and has been a permanent editor at our German sister site PC-WELT since May 2024.

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