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Any computer user knows well that not all software updates are improvements.
But CrowdStrike’s crippling cyber security update on the night before July 19 took unwanted updates a step further, bringing many Microsoft users to their knees.
The software company corrected the defect in little over an hour after its 11:09 p.m. EST release, according to CrowdStrike’s Preliminary Post Incident Review. However, for businesses across the globe, the damage had already been done.
By Land and by sea
The larger the trucking fleet, the more likely a company’s network experienced issues from CrowdStrike’s update, said Rick Todd, president and CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association. These “household name” companies fielded delays following the outage, but have since sorted through the challenges after they notified their customers.
The incident underscores how vulnerable the logistics sector is to cyberattacks, Todd said. Smaller fleets and in-house operators were able to rely on manual dispatches and communications over the last days of July instead.
Greer’s Service Transport Inc. told SC Biz News that the crash had “definitely impacted” operations and delayed shipments over the past week, but added that the problem has since been resolved.
On the other hand, representatives from Lexington’s Southeastern Freight Lines, Columbia’s Alabama Carriers and Charleston’s Goodwin Trucking and Superior Transportation, among other local transport providers, didn’t report any challenges due to the outage.
“We weren’t impacted,” Dusty Locke, regional operations manager of Total Distribution’s Warehouse Operations, told SC Biz News, adding that not everyone in logistics relies on CrowdStrike software for security. “Since we’re more business-to-business, we don’t do any fulfillment like an Amazon or a company like that that’s shipping to individuals. We weren’t credit card dependent or anything like that for our day-to-day.”
Locke’s foreign trade zone warehouse space and trucking fleet, formerly known as Swafford Transport and Warehouse, was acquired by Ohio-based Total Distribution this spring. Total Distribution operates more than 10 million square feet of warehouse space across eight states, according to the February announcement.
“Volumes from the Inland Port have been strong,” he said, adding that while trucking operations across the state have been hurt by the escalating price of fuel, Inland Port Greer’s rail network help bypass some of these costs — and perhaps the hassle caused by the outage.
Unlike several other ports across the United States, the South Carolina ports system told SC Biz News that it had not been affected by the crash.
Flying while frozen
So far, passenger aircraft delays dominated the headlines since the outage. On the Monday following July 19, 1,772 flights were cancelled across the United States, according to FlightAware.com.
Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport reported the software crash did not compromise its own systems, but partnering airlines cancelled 21 out of the 122 flights travelling through the airport on July 19 due to IT woes. Between July 20-23, 28 out of 543 flights were cancelled but GSP spokesman Tom Tyra noted that East Coast thunderstorms curbed some itineraries.
“Most of it was resolved by mid-Saturday morning,” Tyra told SC Biz News on July 24. “There’s still a lot of baggage and things spread around everywhere, where people were still trying to get to where they were supposed to go, but at least the operations are operating, and most of them are on time outside of weather that pops up this time of year.”
Delta Airlines, currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation for its response to the incident, makes up close to 30% of GSP’s passenger activity. According to the airline, operations returned to normal with no cancellations on July 25.
Ever since COVID-19 grounded air travel in 2020, GSP has continued to diversify and grow its cargo carrying capacity. The airport expects numbers to reach 65,000 tons by the end of the year, which is down from 2023’s 79,000 tons but thousands of tons above pre-pandemic levels.
Passenger airlines have more flights between Europe and the U.S. this year, Tyra said, and these pre-scheduled flights charge less for cargo space than all-freight airlines. More and more commercial customers are shifting their cargo to passenger flights to take advantage of the price difference.
But overall, the CrowdStrike crash did not affect GSP’s shipping operations, nor are the 69 cancelled passenger flights expected to leave a significant dent in airport revenue, he said.
“UPS planes were flying while the commercial airliners were frozen,” Kim Crafton, spokesperson for Columbia Metropolitan Airport, told SC Biz News in an email. She said that she wasn’t able to reach the airport’s FedEx partners at the time.
UPS warned customers of shipping delays in a service announcement posted on their website but the warning was removed by July 26.
“All UPS computer systems that run our operations that were affected by last week’s third-party software outage have been restored,” a UPS spokesperson told SC Biz News. “Our air and ground operations are functioning normally, and we continue to deliver for customers.
FedEx did not respond in time for comment.
Cancelled passenger departures at Columbia Regional reached 21 between July 19 and July 23, according to the airport. Crafton said airport staff are proud of their multiple day response to the issue in assisting their airline partners and passengers, after they were notified about the crash at 4 a.m. that Friday.
Charleston Regional Airport did not respond to requests for comment in time for this story.
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