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Faulty CrowdStrike Software Update Cripples Many Major Companies
July 20, 2024
A global tech outage on Friday caused by a faulty software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike disrupted airports, Social Security offices, and jail operations, highlighting the fragility of the global economy’s dependence on computer systems. The issue stemmed from an interaction between CrowdStrike’s update and Microsoft Windows, affecting numerous Fortune 500 companies. This incident underscores the risks of relying heavily on a few dominant cybersecurity providers, as noted by experts like Munish Walther-Puri.
“[M]ost people believe that when the end of the world comes, it will be AI taking over some kind of nuclear power plant and shutting down electricity. While in reality, it’s more likely to be some kind of a little bit of code in a botched update, causing a cascade reaction in interdependent cloud systems.”
Costin Raiu, a longtime cybersecurity researcher, via CNN
The event raised concerns about the need for better digital resilience and policy measures to prevent such occurrences. Anne Neuberger, a senior White House cybersecurity official, emphasized addressing the risks of consolidation in the tech supply chain to enhance recovery capabilities. The outage, though not caused by a malicious actor, illustrated the potential for severe damage from cyber incidents, similar to past significant hacks like the SolarWinds incident in 2020 and the 2017 alleged Russian cyberattack.
CrowdStrike identified and deployed a fix for a faulty update that caused widespread Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues on Windows machines. The root cause was an update to a kernel-level driver used by CrowdStrike. Despite reverting the faulty update, affected machines remain problematic. IT admins report on Reddit that fixing the issue requires booting into safe mode and deleting a specific system file in the CrowdStrike directory, a process complicated for cloud-based and remotely deployed systems. Many companies are experiencing significant disruptions, with numerous devices stuck in boot loops, making it a challenging day for IT professionals globally.
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