On Friday, July 19, a massive computer outage by CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. grounded flights, disrupted markets and disrupted businesses around the world.. CrowdStrike shares fell as much as 15%. The impact of the outage, which was compounded by an apparently unrelated issue with Microsoft Corp.’s Azure cloud services, is expected to be felt continue for days.
What is CrowdStrike?
The cybersecurity company is a dominant provider of software that protects businesses from ransomware attacks.. CrowdStrike controls about 18% of the $8.6 billion global market for so-called “modern” endpoint detection and response software, just ahead of archrival Microsoftaccording to market research firm IDC.
Their software is considered one of the best defenses against all types of emerging hacking threats.using artificial intelligence with traditional security strategies to try to keep up with attackers.
Why did a global computer blackout occur?
A faulty CrowdStrike software update caused cascading system-wide failures for customers in sectors including airlines, banking, healthcare and retailThe company made efforts to resolve the problem. It says the outage was not due to a cyberattack or security breach.
How will it be solved?
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz He said the problem had been identified and “a fix has been deployed.”Any Windows desktop or laptop affected by the initial flawed update will need to be updated. (Mac and Linux machines were not affected.) That’s requiring a laborious manual reboot of computers around the world.
In a customer communication reviewed by Bloomberg News, CrowdStrike’s technical support team warned that an affected system might need to be rebooted up to 15 times.
Who was affected and how?
The problem affected healthcare systems, airlines, ports, businesses and governments. McDonalds, UPS and FedEx were among the companies affected. For airlines, the failure hampered communication between planes and ground control personnel, affecting travelers on a particularly busy day.United Airlines Holdings Inc, Delta Air Lines Inc, American Airlines Group Inc, Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Ryanair are recovering, but slowly.
FlightAware has estimated global delays at more than 21,000 flightsSome employees at banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Nomura Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were unable to log on to their companies’ systems on Friday.
What is Microsoft’s involvement?
The flawed CrowdStrike update brought down Microsoft Corp. systems running the program being updated. An apparently separate incident affecting Microsoft’s Azure cloud services also caused disruptions on Friday. In a status update, Microsoft said it had fixed the underlying issue, but users would still feel a “residual impact.”
The two companies are rivals and offer similar endpoint cybersecurity products. CrowdStrike’s Kurtz has previously attacked Microsoft. After a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report criticized Microsoft’s security problems, Kurtz said in June that Microsoft customers were experiencing a “general crisis of trust.”
At the same time, Microsoft’s operating system -Windows- It is so widespread that the two companies are forced to collaborate with each other because of the people who use both services..
How does CrowdStrike software work?
The type of software you provide CrowdStrike is different from older, more limited types of security software.
Traditional antivirus software was useful in the early days of computing and the Internet for its ability to look for signs of known malware, but it has fallen out of favor as attacks have become more sophisticated. Now, The products known as “endpoint detection and response” software that CrowdStrike develops do much moreThey continuously scan machines for any signs of suspicious activity and automate a response.
But for that, These programs must have access to inspect the very core of computer operating systems for security flaws.This access gives them the ability to disrupt the very systems they are trying to protect. And that is how Microsoft’s Windows systems came into play in Friday’s outage, triggering the dreaded “blue screen of death” for users.
CrowdStrike attributed the incident to “a flaw found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
Although cybersecurity professionals claim that CrowdStrike’s technology is a solid way to defend against ransomware, but its cost – which in some cases can exceed US$50 per machine – means that most organizations do not install it on all their computers.What this means, however, is that computers that have the software installed are among the most important to protect, and if they go down, key services can go down with them.
