CrowdStrike update impacts 8.5M Windows devices

(MENAFN) Microsoft reported in a blog post on Saturday that an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices have been impacted by a recent CrowdStrike update. This update, which affected at least one percent of all devices running Windows, led to a significant global technical glitch that halted operations across numerous sectors on Friday. The disruption ranged from flight cancellations to interruptions in television broadcasts, and from banking disruptions to healthcare system failures.

CrowdStrike, a leading American cybersecurity firm with a market value of approximately USD83 billion, has more than 20,000 subscribers worldwide according to its website. On Friday morning, CrowdStrike issued a notice to its customers, indicating that its widely used Falcon Sensor software had caused Microsoft's Windows operating system to crash, resulting in the notorious "blue screen of death." This screen appears when a fatal system error occurs, causing computers to crash and preventing them from rebooting properly.

In response to the issue, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) that the company had implemented a fix for the problem. He clarified that the incident was neither a security breach nor a cyber attack. However, the challenge remains in how easily affected systems can be repaired remotely, given that the "blue screen of death" prevents computers from rebooting correctly and receiving updates.

Ciaran Martin, former head of the National Cyber Security Centre at Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ, emphasized the enormity of the problem, highlighting the widespread impact and the significant operational disruptions caused by the technical glitch. 

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