Insiders Advisor
  • Stocks
  • World News
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Stocks
  • World News
  • Business
  • Politics

Insiders Advisor

Business

Meet CrowdStrike, the company at the heart of the global tech outage

by July 20, 2024
July 20, 2024
Meet CrowdStrike, the company at the heart of the global tech outage

A fault with an update issued by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike led to a cascading effect among global IT systems Friday, with industries ranging from banking to airlines facing outages.

Banks and health care providers saw their services disrupted and television broadcasters went offline as businesses worldwide grappled with the ongoing outage. Air travel has been hit hard, too, with planes grounded and services delayed.

At the heart of the issue is the Texas-based cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike. On Friday, the cybersecurity firm experienced a major disruption following an issue with a software update.

So what happened, exactly? CNBC takes a look.

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity vendor that develops software to help companies detect and block hacks. It is used by many of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, including major global banks, health care and energy companies.

CrowdStrike is what’s known as an “endpoint security” firm as it uses cloud technology to apply cyber protections to devices that are connected to the internet.

This differs from alternative approaches used by other cyber firms, which involve applying protection directly to backend server systems.

On Friday, people around the world began encountering an error screen known as the “blue screen of death.”

This issue — a common problem among PCs, for example if a machine overheats — was the result of an update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike concerning its Falcon product. 

Falcon is a platform developed by the company that’s designed to stop cyber breaches using cloud technology — it is at the heart of the firm’s focus on endpoints. CrowdStrike said Friday it is in the process of rolling back the update globally.

CrowdStrike’s software requires deep access to a computer’s operating system to scan for threats. In the case of Friday’s outage, machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system crashed due to a fault in the way a software update issued by CrowdStrike interacted with Windows.

“We have been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD [blue screen of death]) and get stuck in a restarting state. We approximate impact started around 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July,” Microsoft said in an update at 5:40 a.m. ET.

“We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike. Customers that are continuing to experience issues should reach out to CrowdStrike for additional assistance,” the company added.

Earlier, Microsoft said its cloud services had been restored after an outage that affected its Azure services and Microsoft 365 suite of apps in the central U.S. region. A company spokesperson said these are two different and non-related issues — one issue relates to Azure, the other is linked to CrowdStrike.

They added that they “anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” in respect to the CrowdStrike problem.

CrowdStrike is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” CEO George Kurtz said Friday in a update on the social media platform X. He added that Mac and Linux hosts are not affected.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” Kurtz said.

That fix could be hard to implement, though. Andy Grayland, chief information and security officer at threat intelligence firm Silobreaker, said that in order to implement a fix, engineers would have to go into each individual data center running windows.

They’d then have to log in, navigate to a certain CrowdStrike file, delete it, and then reboot the entire system, he said.

“Where machines are encrypted, complex encryption keys also need to be entered manually. Unless Microsoft and CrowdStrike (if they are involved) pull something miraculous out of the bag, this could be painful to recover from.”

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS
previous post
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has passed away after battle with pancreatic cancer
next post
Republicans divided on Russia’s security threat as Vance joins Trump presidential ticket

Related Posts

Federal regulators are probing whether Cash App leaves...

February 16, 2024

Dollar General is shaking off tariff fears and...

June 4, 2025

Amazon owes $525 million in cloud-storage patent fight,...

April 16, 2024

Burger King targets families through movie partnerships in...

May 22, 2025

Polls say older voters want Social Security protections....

June 24, 2024

‘Trump trade’ returns for second week as bitcoin,...

November 12, 2024

Kohl’s CEO Tom Kingsbury to step down and...

November 26, 2024

U.S. online stores put up ‘out of stock’...

June 12, 2025

Meta is finally bringing ads to WhatsApp

June 17, 2025

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus dies

November 6, 2024

    Fill Out & Get More Relevant News


    Stay ahead of the market and unlock exclusive trading insights & timely news. We value your privacy - your information is secure, and you can unsubscribe anytime. Gain an edge with hand-picked trading opportunities, stay informed with market-moving updates, and learn from expert tips & strategies.

    Latest News

    • Pope, State Department condemn latest massacre of Christians by Islamist militants in Nigeria

      July 1, 2025
    • Dems vow to fight ‘tooth and nail’ as Supreme Court takes up campaign finance case

      July 1, 2025
    • Google makes first foray into fusion in venture with MIT spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems

      July 1, 2025
    • Trump’s achievements embolden him to be even more aggressive

      July 1, 2025
    • Republicans scrap deal in ‘big, beautiful bill’ to lower restrictions on states’ AI regulations

      July 1, 2025
    • Trump warns of ‘whopping 68% tax increase’ if Senate fails to pass historic bill

      July 1, 2025

    Categories

    • Business (1,288)
    • Politics (6,221)
    • Stocks (904)
    • World News (460)
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions

    Disclaimer: insidersadvisor.com, its managers, its employees, and assigns (collectively “The Company”) do not make any guarantee or warranty about what is advertised above. Information provided by this website is for research purposes only and should not be considered as personalized financial advice. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendation. Any investments recommended here should be taken into consideration only after consulting with your investment advisor and after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

    Copyright © 2024 insidersadvisor.com | All Rights Reserved