Many businesses today are experiencing issues with backlogs and pending orders that can take days to process.
Health services in Britain, Israel and Germany have also been hit hard, with some surgeries being cancelled.
The global chaos has raised concerns about the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies, and how a single software flaw could have such far-reaching effects.
According to Microsoft, the issue began at 7 p.m. GMT on Thursday and affected Windows users using cybersecurity software CrowdStrike Falcon, but the full extent of the problem was not revealed until Friday morning.
But by Friday evening, the problem had eased in many parts of the globe, and many airports said most flights were now operating, although check-in and payment systems were still experiencing issues.
And Downdetector, a website that detects sites that may be experiencing technical issues, showed that by the end of the day, there were fewer sites experiencing issues in the UK.
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said in a statement that the flaw was discovered “in a single content update on a Windows host” in X.
“We sincerely apologize for the impact this has had on our customers, travelers and everyone else who has been impacted by this incident, including our company,” he told the NBC network.
“Many customers are rebooting their systems and it will be up and running soon.
“While it may take some time for some systems to recover automatically, it is our mission to ensure that all customers are fully recovered.”
