Thought Leadership
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike experienced a massive system outage on Friday that affected businesses around the globe. As CrowdStrike confirmed, the outage was caused by problems with the latest update.
A widespread Windows error has brought the computer systems of emergency services, banks, airports and other institutions to a standstill. According to reports, Windows computers can no longer be booted. Apparently, the problem lies with the software of the cyber security company CrowdStrike.
The company is now working to reverse this update worldwide. “CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows systems related to the Falcon Sensor,” the company said in a statement.
Security teams at Australian cybersecurity company StickmanCyber confirmed to it-daily.net that the outage was related to a CrowdStrike update.
“We assume that all companies using versions 7.15 and 7.16 are affected by the outage, but 7.17 appears to be fine. We are awaiting an official advisory from CrowdStrike on these findings, but are doing our best to help affected customers. It’s a lesson that you should always update your software, but this is of course an extreme example. IT security tools should ensure that companies can continue to operate even in the worst-case scenario of a data breach.” Furthermore, StickmanCyber says: “Crowdstrike support offers a workaround to its customers. This states that users can fix the problem by starting Windows in Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment and deleting a file called “C-00000291*.sys”.”
