- Windows devices suffered a global outage, but Mac and Linux remained unaffected, CrowdStrike said.
- The issue, caused by a defective update, halted airlines, hospitals, and public transport.
- But Apple's ecosystem control and limited third-party exposure shielded its devices from the defect.
While Windows users suffered from a global IT outage, Mac owners weren't affected by the defect responsible.
Major airlines, banks, and retailers are experiencing widespread disruptions linked to the outage after Microsoft reported problems with its online services connected to an issue at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Many businesses have been held up by the "blue screen of death" on their Microsoft devices since early Friday morning, but it's business as usual for Mac users, according to CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz.
One reason Apple's 2.2 billion iOS devices are exempt from this cybersecurity snafu is the "benefit of an Apple ecosystem," the Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said.
"Everything is controlled within the four walls of Apple Park," Ives told CNBC.
Apple and Windows have different operating systems. iPhones, Macs, and all other Apple products are tightly controlled by the company when it comes to security and updates. For Windows, updates are more frequent, and its software library is larger than that of Apple's ecosystem. Linux also has its own operating system and was not affected, Kurtz said in a statement on X.
And unlike Microsoft, Apple is less likely to work with third parties — such as CrowdStrike — which leaves it "much less exposed on the enterprise," Ives said.
William Kerwin, a Morningstar tech analyst, told Business Insider that this sort of outage could've affected Mac users since CrowdStrike offers security on Macs "but the way the rollout happened, it got stopped before moving to that customer base."
Most large enterprises run their servers off Windows- or Linux-based systems. While Apple does have an enterprise presence, it has seen more success selling Macs and other products that company workers use to complete work tasks versus the underlying systems powering the companies' servers. So when there's a widespread enterprise IT issue like the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage, the impact can be widely felt across the core infrastructure of major companies running their systems on Windows, which was the case with airlines in this instance.
Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
CrowdStrike said the issue was caused by a defective update, not a cyberattack. "The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed," Kurtz said. "We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website."
