Please explain why this is such a big deal and the impact. Thanks.
In: Technology
As far as I understand, Crowdstrike pushed a software update that included an updated driver file.
That driver file is bugged to the point where it frequently causes the system to crash during startup, leaving the system in a bootloop and requiring a manually applied workaround (booting into safe mode and deleting the problemed file).
That workaround can’t be applied remotely as the system crashes during startup, so applying it to each affected system will take a lot of staff time.
Big companies are worried about security. So, they pay Crowdstrike to get protection.
Crowdstrike install software in each computer to protect it. It look for viruses, vulnerabilities, access to unsafe webpages, etc.
Crowdstrike is crashing after being updated. So, all computers from all companies using it cannot be used.
Imagine what is going to happen when an iPhone update makes the phone stop working. Hundreds of millions of phones would become unusable. This is the same but for corporate computers.
I just got off a 5 hour call fixing our entire environment.
It’s a big deal because this requires a manual fix of each individual server/computer if it has already bluescreened.
Usually if there’s some bug or disruption you can use tools to remotely kick off a fix, but not when a machine won’t even boot.
I feel bad for all the helpdesk people who are going to have to walk remote users through the steps of getting into safe mode….
It’s a big deal because CloudStrike is used by so many large organisations. Airports, banks, trains, tv stations are all being taken down by it.
And as the fix has to be done in person to to the nature of the issue, those organisations have to send an IT person to every machine that’s affected. Thats a lot of time, and until it’s fixed, all those services remain disrupted.
You obviously don’t work in IT. Its requires physical attendance for every affected device to fix it at this stage
Imaging having an organisation with 500 devices, let alone one that has 10,000 devices each requiring a manual fix.
It’s a big issue as it’s used by a ridiculous amount of people and companies.
This issue is from an update where stuff starts going in circles (looping) to the point where it crashes the computer.
What this caused is that stuff went offline (can’t be fixed remotely) and people are having to manually update servers and computer systems.
Everyone from airlines to 911 to hospitals to CBP ports to banks are down.
Not sure if you saw but companies like FedEx and UPS *just stopped running for a while*, and all flights in the USA were grounded. Those are gargantuan problems because those industries rely on up to the minute coordination between a lot of moving parts. When they stop, you can’t just flip a switch and start them back up again like a lawn mower.
A lot of important computers used in global infrastructure, hospitals, transport, communication and other similar organizations are running this software since it’s one of the more popular security softwares.
They pushed the update this morning that has a critical bug which basically causes a BSOD loop so the computers can’t boot up properly.
Crowd strike have update their Falcon security software, this has caused a problem for windows Machines having a “blue screen of death” effectively causing the computer to reboot and the service that the windows machine was running to shutdown.
It looks like Microsoft used Falcon as part of their security measures on their cloud Azure platform where millions of customers have servers running software from Airline booking systems, card payment systems, websites, till systems basically anything you can think of the chances are they may be using a windows server to run it.
companies will usually run multiple instances of the servers just in case one goes down, but the problem is falcon was bluescreening anything it was installed on making redundancy useless.
Latest Answers