PEORIA, Ill. – It could be weeks before the exact reasoning behind a global computer system outage is known, but now fixes are being put into place.
Banks, businesses, airlines, hospitals and airlines were affected globally when Austin, Texas-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike attempted to update its anti-malware software.
“I think it’s probably the widest outage, the most computers affected,” Pearl Technology Managing Partner Dave Johnson told WMBD’s John Malone, “but, it was a mistake and not a cybersecurity hack or an attack.”
A faulty code in the update files resulted in one of the most widespread tech outages in recent years for companies using Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The outage resulted in Microsoft users computers display what it commonly referred to as the “blue screen of death.”
“It’s being fixed now and it will be cleared up. But, it certainly wreaked havoc while it was happening,” Johnson said.
CrowdStrike provides antivirus software to Microsoft for use in Windows devices. Johnson the company was attempting to perform what is usually routine upgrade to its security system.
“(CrowdStrike) pushed out an update that had a glitch in it and the glitch actually kept the computer from booting up Windows,” Johnson said. “If your company used CrowdStrike and your computer used Microsoft, it caused the ‘blue screen of death’ to come up.”
Johnson said computer systems using Mac or Linix were not affected.
“It’s a CrowdStrike problem. It’s up to CrowdStrike to provide the fix,”
Johnson says it could be weeks before it’s known how the security upgrade became defected.
“Typically before you push out an update, or a patch as it’s called in the industry, it undergoes beta testing, so they test the heck out it,” Johnson said.
“Somebody dropped the ball and let this bad file get out.”
CrowdStrike Founder and CEO George Kurtz has apologized for the global tech failure vowing to work with all of its customers as they work to get their operations back online.
“As CrowdStrike continues to work with customers and partners to resolve this incident, our team has written a technical overview of today’s events,” Kurtz said in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter). “We will continue to update our findings as the investigation progresses.”
“I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for today’s outage.”
Kurtz explained in a letter also posted on X, that the outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts.
“This was not a cyberattack,” Kurtz emphasized.
“As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again,” Kurtz said.
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