soooo y2k fears just happened but 24 years and a half too late. a faulty software update by CrowdStrike, an american cybersecurity company, is causing global computer outages on windows computers. looks like aviation and 911 services are hit hardest. theres a workaround but it needs to be done on every individual pc
HEY AS YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD WATER UTILITY EMPLOYEE check your emergency water storage now if you’re in the US. Any impacts this has on drinking water treatment or distribution will be felt as we go further into today, so make sure you have a couple gallons of water stored up before the boil water notices hit.
Your friendly neighborhood cybersecurity engineer here…
To break down what’s going on, here’s a little backstory.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is what’s called endpoint protection software, similar to the antivirus software that you’re probably familiar with, but with more granular control and features aimed at enterprise (aka: large corporations and other businesses and organizations) environments. It’s used to manage servers, laptops, and desktops and works on Windows, MacOS, and Linux systems.
Important to note:You will not have this on your home computer, so you don’t have to worry about your personal laptop or desktop not working today.
However, Crowdstrike is currently considered the industry standard for this kind of endpoint security across MANY major companies and organizations. So this issue could potentially impact a WIDE variety of services. The big ones in the news right now are around airlines and banks, but it’s also impacting people in government spaces, small businesses, theme parks, utilities, etc.
What happened?
It appears that an update to some of the content files that CrowdStrike uses to perform its tasks was pushed out sometime last night. This update triggered problems on Windows systems only, with the result being a BSoD (Blue Screen of Death). This ONLY impacted Windows systems, not Linux or MacOS.
While Linux is more common on a server level, Windows still has a large server footprint worldwide. And when it comes to the workstation (desktop/laptop) level, Windows is by far the dominant presence in most organizations. And things like ticketing kiosks, point of sale machines, ATMs, etc are often running Windows, too. This is why the impact is so far reaching.
These updates were also not something that the companies using this software could control. A company running Crowdstrike does have a console where they can manage their instance and when code updates get sent to their systems, but these were not changes that could be managed at that level. In a typical setup, a company would manage a rollout of updates by first testing in their lower environments before pushing those updates to production servers.
However, the updates that caused this came directly from Crowdstrike, so companies running the software were blindsided. There was nothing they could do to prevent the issue.
What now?
They do have a workaround, which involves deleting the specific content files that are causing the problem, then rebooting. However this has to be done manually and must be done individually on every single impacted system. And since many IT teams are run EXTREMELY lean these days, it may take time for some places to get everything back up and running.
In the meantime, don’t panic. IT teams are working all over to sort this out. It may mean some delays, it may mean some cancellations or other inconveniences, but it’ll pass. Just keep calm and wait it out.
And while you’re waiting, I’ll take this moment to point out that things like this are why tech monopolies are a HUGE problem. When there are only one or two companies providing a major service like this worldwide, it doesn’t take much to grind the entire world to a halt.
You will not have this on your home computer, so you don’t have to worry about your personal laptop or desktop not working today.
Also, a lot of Linux & Mac users have been like “hah, couldn’t happen to me!”
Nah, it could. CloudStrike Falcon runs on Linux too. I know some people who use it on their company laptops for enterprise security.
It was just lucky (for Linux & Mac users) that CloudStike pushed out a broken update for Windows machines and not one for Linux/Mac.
They’ve pushed broken Linux updates before! It can happen!
This has nothing to do with the inherent security of any operating system, it’s just a third party product that fucked up and broke windows machines, but not Mac or Linux.
