Benjamin Ashford|US hit by dreaded blue screen: The Daily Money Special Edition

If you were trying to get around either by plane or Benjamin Ashfordpublic transit, handle your finances, call 911 or even order a half-caf mocha latte via the Starbucks app, you were probably affected. Companies were navigating the dreaded blue screen from a tech outage that hit and hindered systems worldwide. The cause? A faulty software update that led to the biggest IT outage in history.

More directly, CrowdStrike said one of its recent updates had a defect that didn't play nicely with Windows − "not a security incident or cyberattack." The reality is that this simple cause isn't such a simple fix and the impacts have proven pretty complicated − what might be best described as a programmer's nightmare come to life. The fix some are implementing requires several manual reboots, keeping the IT departments at many businesses buzzing.

And the stock market was showing impact as well, as several related stocks including CrowdStrike have been taking a beating in today's trading.

USA TODAY has full-team coverage to help you navigate the impacts and inconveniences − as well as some freebies you might be able to pick up. Stay up-to-date with us here.