On July 19th, some of Microsoft's applications and services suddenly encountered issues, causing users to experience lag, incomplete functions, and even complete inoperability. This incident made it to the global trending topics. Important services such as flights, banks, and hospitals in many countries and regions were affected, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, New Zealand, and Australia.

The problem arose due to a global cybersecurity company, CrowdStrike, which collaborates with Microsoft. While updating their antivirus software, they accidentally deleted an important file in the Windows system. Currently, CrowdStrike is working hard to fix this issue. Their CEO, George Kurtz, stated on social media: "This is not a hacker attack, it's our mistake, the problem has been identified and is being resolved."

The White House is also paying attention to this matter. President Biden has been briefed on the relevant information, and his team is maintaining contact with CrowdStrike and other affected institutions. This technical issue also forced the U.S. Social Security Administration's offices to close for a day.

Due to this technical failure, CrowdStrike's stock plummeted that day, falling by 15% at one point, and closing down 11%, with its market value shrinking by nearly ten billion dollars overnight, marking the worst performance since 2022. Microsoft's stock also slightly declined by 0.74% that day.

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CrowdStrike is a company established in 2011, and its flagship product is the Falcon platform. This platform uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help detect, prevent, and respond to cyber threats. In the global endpoint security market, Falcon holds a market share of 17.7%, and among the top 500 global companies, 271 are its customers. Due to its strong capabilities in preventing advanced cyber attacks, major companies such as Microsoft and Amazon AWS, as well as major global banks, medical, and energy companies, are using its software to prevent hacker threats.

According to data released by CrowdStrike itself, it ranks first among the top 26 endpoint security vendors globally. By the fourth quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, its identity protection business has exceeded an annual revenue of 300 million dollars, more than double the previous year.

However, this software also carries risks because it needs to delve into computer systems to scan for threats. Recently, a major issue occurred because a software update from CrowdStrike went wrong and conflicted with the Windows system, causing a global "blue screen" failure.

CrowdStrike's co-founder and CEO, George Kurtz, has acknowledged the issue and stated that a fix has been released. He said that this issue only affected Windows users, while Mac and Linux users are safe. He emphasized that this is not a security incident or cyber attack.

This incident is a significant blow to CrowdStrike, causing its stock to plummet and providing competitors with opportunities to gain more market share. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that CrowdStrike must take effective measures in the coming weeks and months to restore the trust of customers and the market.The system crash that began on the 18th has impacted various industries such as banking, retail, and healthcare globally, almost resembling a "nuclear bomb-level" event in terms of cybersecurity. The aviation industry was the first to be affected, with flight delays or service interruptions occurring in airlines across multiple countries. For instance, all flights of several major U.S. airlines were grounded on the morning of the 19th.

In addition, the largest railway operator in the UK, Japan's railway system, Australia's supermarket checkout systems, and banking systems in various countries have all been affected. Even some services of the London Stock Exchange and the European Energy Exchange were interrupted due to this technical issue.

Large companies like Tesla, Starbucks, and ExxonMobil were also affected. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even angrily announced that he would delete CrowdStrike's software from all systems and complained that the failure severely impacted the automotive supply chain. Musk was very dissatisfied and even posted an AI-generated image of "burning down the CrowdStrike server room" on social media to express his anger.

Despite the technical issues faced by CrowdStrike, the U.S. stock market is slowly returning to normal. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, the two major markets, both stated that their operations were unaffected. Large banks like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs also said that their businesses did not have any major problems.

However, on the 19th, the three major U.S. stock indices all fell. The S&P 500 index fell by 39.59 points, a decline of 0.71%, closing at 5,505.00 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 377.49 points, a decline of 0.93%, closing at 40,287.53 points. The NASDAQ Composite Index fell by 144.28 points, a decline of 0.81%, closing at 17,726.94 points. Among these companies, CrowdStrike fell by 11.1%, Intel fell by 5.42%, Tesla fell by 4.02%, and Nvidia fell by 2.61%. There were also some companies listed in China, such as Neng Lian Zhi Dian, which fell by 23.11%, and Yi Hang Zhi Neng, which fell by 11.56%.

Interestingly, "Wood Sister," also known as the founder of Ark Fund, Cathy Wood, increased her holdings of CrowdStrike's stock against the market trend. Her company bought 38,595 shares of CrowdStrike that day, spending about $13.24 million. This purchase was made after CrowdStrike experienced technical issues.

In addition to buying CrowdStrike, Ark Fund also bought shares of the software development platform GitLab Inc., through a fund called ARKW ETF, buying 38,519 shares for about $2 million.

At the same time, Ark Fund also sold some shares of other companies. For example, they sold 17,607 shares of Tesla through ARKW ETF, worth about $4.39 million. This sale followed the trend of selling Tesla shares that they started earlier this week. In addition, they sold 16,758 shares of the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase Global Inc, with a total value of $3.91 million, which also continued the trading pattern from last week.