A software update issued by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused a cascade effect among global IT systems on Friday, leading to disruptions in industries such as banking, healthcare, and air travel. CrowdStrike experienced a major disruption following an issue with the update, resulting in machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system crashing due to a fault in the update’s interaction with Windows.
CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity vendor that develops software to help companies detect and block hacks, with its Falcon product being at the heart of the firm’s focus on endpoints. The company is actively working on rolling back the faulty update globally, with CEO George Kurtz emphasizing that the issue is not a security incident or cyberattack.
Microsoft also experienced an outage not related to CrowdStrike, affecting its Azure services and Microsoft 365 suite of apps, but has stated that a resolution is forthcoming for the CrowdStrike problem. The fix could be challenging to implement, as engineers will need to manually address each Windows machine in data centers to delete the problematic file and reboot the system, potentially involving complex encryption keys for encrypted machines.
Overall, the issue caused by CrowdStrike’s faulty update has had widespread repercussions, and both companies are working to resolve the problem for their users globally.
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