If you woke up this morning to the dreaded Windows “blue screen of death,” you are not alone. An undetected flaw in an update in the CrowdStrike software package is the cause of the problem and millions of individuals and businesses around the world were affected. This outage, specifically affecting Windows users, caused widespread disruption even causing planes to be grounded and other transportation systems to grind to a halt. The event has highlighted the critical importance of robust IT support and disaster recovery plans.
The Cause of the Outage
The CrowdStrike Windows outage was triggered by a complex chain of events. It all began with a routine update that was pushed to CrowdStrike's Windows servers. Unfortunately, this update contained a critical flaw that went undetected during the testing phase. When deployed, the update caused a cascading failure in the server’s operating system, leading to widespread downtime.
This incident was further exacerbated by a surge in traffic from users trying to access their cloud services, which overwhelmed the already compromised servers. The result was an extensive outage that left many businesses unable to access their data and applications, causing significant operational disruptions.
The Fix
CrowdStrike's response was to halt the problematic update and revert the affected servers to their previous stable state. This involved rolling back the update and restoring data from backups. The IT teams worked around the clock to ensure that all affected servers were reverted to their operational states.
There is a workaround to the problem. It involves rebooting your computer in safe mode, deleting the problematic file, and then rebooting normally. But, this must be done on a machine-by-machine basis and will be difficult for large IT departments to handle at scale.
How Kinettix Can Help
If your company was affected, Kinettix has technicians available today to assist in rapid response and recovery. If you have been impacted by the CrowdStrike outage, we can help by putting techs onsite to assist your IT team in recovering from this significant outage.
If you need assistance, call us at (888)397-0086.
