The massive Microsoft Windows BSOD (blue screen of death) outage has affected many companies worldwide, including airlines, broadcasters and others. The problem was caused by a faulty update from security giant CrowdStrike that forced computers and servers into an unrecoverable boot loop. The change has since been reverted, but many machines are still affected.
“We have extensive data on BSODs on Windows hosts occurring across multiple sensor versions,” CrowdStrike said. pinned Reddit post. “[We have] We have identified a content deployment related to this issue and have reverted these changes.” The company went on to describe a workaround that involves booting Windows into Safe Mode and removing a specific driver.
The issue forced Delta, Frontier and other airlines to ground flights and affected UK broadcaster Sky and the London Stock Exchange. Dozens of commenters on the Reddit thread reported that their companies were effectively offline due to the problem.
“Even if [CrowdStrike] After fixing the problem that caused the BSOD, I’m wondering how to restore thousands of devices that won’t boot,” one user noted. “Let me explain how it would be for someone who is not tech savvy and works from home. boot their cars into safe mode,” wrote another.
Reddit users, including many IT managers from Australia, Malaysia, Japan, India, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, have reported struggling with this problem. “Here in the Philippines, especially at my employer, Thanos snapped his fingers. Half of the entire organization [is] Down due to BSOD loop. It started at 2pm and is still going. “What a Friday,” said one.
CrowdStrike is a US-based security company that provides real-time protection against security threats to corporations. One of its key products is the Falcon, which the company describes as “providing real-time attack indicators, hyper-accurate detection and automated protection” from threats. A CrowdStrike spokesperson said the incident was caused by a problem with Falcon.
Adding to the pain, Microsoft also appears to have made a separate cut with Azure services and the Microsoft 365 software suite. “Users won’t be able to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services” he wrote. It’s unclear which, if any, of the outages were related to this rather than the CrowdStrike issue.
