In what looks like the biggest IT outage in years, a massive cybersecurity software outage is causing chaos across the globe.
Airports, banks, stock exchanges, 911 services, transit systems, hotels, news outlets, hospitals, emergency services, and more began seeing the infamous blue screen of death (BSOD) after cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike issued a software update.
Crowdstrike provides cloud workload protection and endpoint security, threat intelligence, and cyberattack response services to clients that include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, eBay, Visa, AT&T, and more.
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In a LinkedIn post, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the outage was caused by a single Windows update. The issue isn’t with Microsoft itself, but only affects Windows systems. Mac and Linux customers are operating normally. Kurtz also added that the issue wasn’t the result of a cyberattack or hack, and that Crowdstrike has identified and isolated the issue, and deployed a fix.
When systems went down, people quickly felt the results.
Airports across the world developed snarling lines as the glitch grounded flights. In the US, Delta, American, United, Spirit, Frontier, and Allegiant airlines were all affected by the outage, and while some have started to slowly begin operations again, most have not. Even when airlines come back online, it’s possible the effects of hundreds of canceled flights will last through the weekend.
Several hospitals, including one of the largest in Boston, canceled non-urgent procedures.
In Europe, several media outlets couldn’t broadcast, airlines shut down, hospitals couldn’t access records, transit systems saw delays, and the London Stock Exchange opened late. In Africa, customers of two major banks were not able to make payments with their cards at grocery stores and gas stations or use ATMs.
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Even the popular outage tracker DownDetector was down Friday morning, but it’s not clear if that’s from the increase in traffic or the outage itself.
Mike Walters, President and co-founder of Action1, a vendor of patch management software, suggested this type of problem happens due to inadequate testing scenarios and that deploying the update in phases could have stopped the issue from being so far-reaching.
If you’re suffering from a BSOD, starting your computer in Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment is a reported workaround. Several system admins on a Reddit thread shared this fix: Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment, and then navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory. Delete the file “C-0000029*.sys”, and your system should boot normally.
