Many banks, media and airlines experienced this blue screen of death this morning when they lit theirs Microsoft Windows machines. The terrifying error page, with the message “Your device encountered a problem and needs to be restarted,” was caused by a single update from Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike, a the cyber security giant with operations in more than 170 countries.
The majority (70%) of CrowdStrike's $900 million in revenue earned for the quarter ending in April came from its customers in the USincluding Google, Amazonand Microsoft.
CrowdStrike's broad reach resulted in “The biggest IT outage in history”, according to some cybersecurity the experts. Updating delayed Delta, United and American Airlines flights, cancelled Planned operations at hospitals in Massachusetts and Ohio were suspended 911 servicesand influenced other public and private sector operations across the globe.
George Kurtz, CEO of Crowdstrike. Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz wrote in one X post As of Friday, CrowdStrike has found the cause of the problem and released a fix.
“This is not a security incident or cyber attack,” he stressed, adding that organizations should communicate with CrowdStrike representatives and check the support page.
“Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike's customers,” he added.
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers affected by a flaw found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected. This is not a security incident or cyber attack. The problem has been identified, isolated and a fix has been implemented. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
In one blog posthe said: “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this. I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you engage with official CrowdStrike representatives.”
Kurtz also moved on tODAY and apologized for the interruption, giving more details about what went wrong. He explained that the update implemented by CrowdStrike had a software bug, which caused problems with the Microsoft Windows operating system.
“As the systems come back online as they reboot, they're up and running,” he said. “We are now working with each customer to make sure we can get them back online.”
When asked how a single content update could instantly shut down everything from emergency services to credit card payment systems across the globe without reserve, Kurtz said: “We'll have to go back and see what happened here”.
CrowdStrike currently leads the world market in endpoint security or protection for devices such as desktops and laptops.