A wide IT outage that spanned thousands of companies and individuals took place on Friday after a software glitch at CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose services are used by many organizations.
This resulted in “Blue Screen Death” error in several Microsoft Windows devices leading to system crashes across businesses such as airlines, banks, retailers, media companies and stock markets, to name a few
CrowdStrike has acknowledged the problem and is working on a solution. While some systems have reportedly recovered, the full extent of the damage and recovery timeline remains unknown.
What is CrowdStrike and caused Outage?
CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity technology company founded in 2011. The company offers solutions like cloud workload protection, endpoint security, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services.
The outage is primarily attributed to a malfunctioning update from CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor, a component of their endpoint security software, designed to protect devices from cyber threats.
According to reports, the latest update contained a bug that caused the sensor to conflict with the Windows operating system. This resulted in the infamous ‘blue screen of death’.
Cybersecurity experts have warned the ongoing outage highlights a “critical” weakness threatening the operations of many organizations across the globe.
Crowdstrike users are urged not to download and install any update from the software until the issue is resolved.
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