CrowdStrike IT Outage: All you need to know
A global Windows outage, reportedly caused by third -party cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has impacted businesses including airlines, banks, media broadcasters, schools, and supermarkets, among others.
There are reports of worldwide Blue Screen of Death for Windows users, the crash has seen over 1,000 flights cancelled. More than 3,200 departures are scheduled today, the busiest day for UK flights this year :( Outside the UK, reports of handwritten tickets and long waits and technical difficulties have been circulating on social media.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company, that has redefined security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform that protects and enables the people, processes and technologies that drive modern enterprises. CrowdStrike secures the most critical areas of risk -endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data.
Their flagship security tool, the CrowdStrike Falcon is powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud. The platform promises total protection, and leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence to deliver accurate detections, automated protection and remediation.
CrowdStrike’s software is popular and widely used, and as a result, there are numerous outages across platforms including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft 365, Azure, Instagram, eBay, Visa, and AT&T.
What is happening?
Earlier this morning, the company warned its users that Windows systems are “experiencing a bug check/blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor,” and said that its engineering teams are “actively working to resolve this issue.” Apparently, an update to the Falcon software is what caused the issue; the company apparently have rolled back the update, but numerous machines are still affected.
“CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor,” the cybersecurity company wrote in an alert confirming the outage at 1:30 a.m. ET on Friday. Just before 6 a.m. ET, the company issued another statement, per the BBC. Downdetector is a good place to check which services are having issues.
Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified and isolated, a fix will follow. Fortunately, CrowdStrike has since announced at 2:30 a.m. ET that it has identified the update causing the issue and rolled it back. The company also offered a workaround for anyone having problems.
How widespread is this issue?
Airlines, railways, GP surgeries, banks and TV stations in the UK and around have been reported to be disrupted by the incident. Airlines around the world, including Delta, American, RyanAir, and United Airlines, have been grounded due to the outage.
Sky News was unable to broadcast live TV early on Friday, also apparently due to this incident. CrowdStrike software is typically maintained by a company’s system administrator. More than 3,200 departures are scheduled today, the busiest day for UK flights this year.
So, to System Admins out there, happy weekend, good luck and may God have mercy on your souls. YOU’LL BE NEEEDING IT!!!
What’s a blue screen of death?
If you’ve been so fortunate to never see a blue screen of death, it is a type of critical error on Windows PCs which essentially halts whatever the computer’s been doing and displays an error report on a blue screen. The common causes of BSOD range from driver failure to hardware failure, overheating and even malware.
There are many ways to try to Resolve a BSOD. A simple restart may resolve temporary issues. Rolling back recent changes and updates. Undoing recent software installations or updates that might have caused the issue. You could restore the system to a previous state when it was functioning correctly. For persistent or complex issues, it may be necessary to seek professional technical support.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the outage is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified and isolated, a fix will follow. If your organization runs on CrowdStrike infrastructure, the company is providing real-time aid to all in need. Reach out to them and get the issue resolved.
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