Malicious actors trying to exploit global tech outage for their own gain

As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain.

Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and even CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage.

"We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this," Kurtz said in a statement. "I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you're engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives."

The UK Cyber Security Center said they have noticed an increase in phishing attempts around this event.

Microsoft said 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by the faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions. That's less than 1% of all Windows-based machines, Microsoft cybersecurity executive David Weston said in a blog post Saturday.

He also said such a significant disturbance is rare but "demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem."

By late morning on the U.S. East Coast, airlines around the world had canceled more than 1,500 flights, far fewer than the 5,100-plus cancellations on Friday, according to figures from tracking service FlightAware.

Two-thirds of Saturday's canceled flights occurred in the United States, where carriers scrambled to get planes and crews back into position after massive disruptions the day before. According to travel-data provider Cirium, U.S. carriers canceled about 3.5% of