Paul Stenhouse: Continued outages from the CrowdStrike outage, WhatsApp's US userbase continues to grow

A week on from CrowdStrike's outage and not all systems are back online 

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a post yesterday that "over 97%" of systems running its software were back online as of 25 July. Microsoft estimates that 8.5 million PCs had been disabled, so that suggests approximately 250,000 devices remain offline. In the US, Delta Airlines is the most high profile victim with lingering issues well into this week continuing to cause flight disruptions, seemingly related to issues with the systems for crewing planes with pilots and flight attendants. 
 
The stock price managed to make a little bit of a recovery on Tuesday, but is continuing to slide, and it’s down around 10% since the outage. It's taken them back to December 2023 levels, effectively wiping out their 2024 gains. 
 
There are reports today of a new blue screen of death issue - but this time it's not related to CrowdStrike. Microsoft’s latest blue screen can’t be blamed on CrowdStrike, which is popping up on Windows 11 machines that use BitLocker. BitLocker is Microsoft's hard-drive encryption tool that protects data from unauthorized access or theft. The issue isn’t widespread, but those impacted will have to enter a recovery key to get a PC to boot properly. 

 
WhatsApp now has 100 million monthly users in the US 

It's the big metropolitan cities showing the biggest growth - Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle. They're also the cities that have the most immigrants. WhatsApp now has more than 2 billion users in over 180 countries, but the dominance of Apple’s iMessage in the US has proven to be a hurdle since the 2014 acquisition for $16 billion. As Google and Apple both adopt RCS messaging, Meta will continue to face an uphill battle.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks at B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Twenty two to eleven Non News Talks EDB A week
on from the crowd Strike tech outage, and still not
all systems are back online. Our Textbert Paul Stenhouse is
here with the details. Paul, now that we've had a
little bit of water under the bridge, talk to us
about the fallout.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
I told you it was going to be there. I
told you that this was basically like a coming right
where if.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
You were one hundred percent right on that front.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah, yeah, And so the Crossfake CEO said in the
post yesterday that over ninety seven percent of systems are
back online, but Microsoft estimates that eight point five million
PCs have been disabled. So if you do some quick math,
that means there's still quarter of a million devices remaining offline,
which is that's a phenomenal amount. Again for the people

(01:00):
who were actually trying to be good corporate citizens and
actually try to protect their system, you know, they kind
of got a little screwed. In the US though, Delta
Airlines was probably one of the most high profile victims
of the outage, and they still have lingering issues and

(01:21):
their CEO has had to come out and apologize. There
are continued flight disruptions, and it seems that those issues
are related to some of the systems for crewing planes
with pilots and flight attendants. Apparently people are sitting at
the gate and are just like trying to flag down.
This was earlier in the week, trying to flag down
just any pilot or flight attendant to like maybe fly

(01:41):
their plane for them, because Delta doesn't seem to know
or didn't seem to know where any of their pilots
or flight attendants were not good. And the stock price
of CrowdStrike it kind of may tried to make a
recovery on Tuesday, but it's down ten percent since last week,
about ten percent, and it's kind of taken them back
to where they were at the end of twenty twenty three,

(02:03):
so effectively wiped out the twenty twenty four games.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
I'm surprised.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
I'm not words completely Yeah, they're not like completely in
the in the scene, but can you know these reports
today have another blue screen of death issue. You know,
we're like your I this time not related to CrowdStrike,
but Microsoft the BitLocker, which is their encryption service that's
having some issues and they're having to roll out of shoes,

(02:26):
so there will be some system admins around here, and
it's like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Seems like it's yeah, and just again the irony of
all these companies that we're trying to do the right
thing to protect themselves from cybersecurity threats instead got taken down. Hey,
WhatsApp now has one hundred million monthly users in the US.
That's a huge sign of growth.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
It is it is because this is America is just
not a WhatsApp kind of land. It's really funny. I've
got friends in the UK or friends in New Zealand.
New Zealand seems to love Facebook Messenger I found in
my circles, and then the UK they're just obsessed with
WhatsApp and America all about app, all about I message
and so this is big. They have made US spent

(03:10):
sixteen billion dollars and twenty fourteen to buy WhatsApp, and
they've really struggled to get growth. So the one hundred
million marks really big. Not surprisingly, they're seeing their biggest
growth in places that are kind of immigrant friendly. I
guess Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Seattle, but it's just
kind of it's just not a thing, and so they're
really trying to make it a thing. I know, like

(03:31):
one hundred million people, but that's like one in three.
It's still not really and that's monthly users. Yeah, so
someone like me who's forced who's WhatsApp when it gets
when one of my friends in the UK wants to
message me, I'm one of those monthly users. I'm not
a daily user.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, yet it'll change, Paul, You just gonna get the
family chat like, this is the thing. The problem is
though that were problems. Well, the problem is too many
people you do do the chat now? Yeh see, we've
got the my wife is doing whatever she can to
avoid getting sucked into the family chat stage. Oh yeah
yeah yeah. Well, to be asked, I don't blame it.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
We've ti multiple we've got multiple versions of family chats,
so with significant others, some without.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
It can be dangerous. It can be dangerous and punishing,
thank you very much. You know when you come back
to your phone and you've suddenly got seventy six notifications
and you're like, oh, what's happened here, what's happened?

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay, just photos the dog, right, very Good.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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