Addressing the Microsoft outage, CrowdStrike President and CEO, George Kurtz, said the firm was working with customers and assured that it was not a cyberattack.
Microsoft Outage: CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm linked to a software update that resulted in a major outage on devices running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide IT outages on Friday, has assured consumers that the issue “not a security incident or cyberattack”, adding that it has isolated (the issue) and deployed a fix for the same.
Addressing the outage, CrowdStrike President and CEO, George Kurtz, said the firm was working with customers on the issues faced by them while assuring that it was not a cyberattack.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, and isolated and a fix has been deployed,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz urged affected customers to visit the company’s support website for the latest updates, and asked organizations to stay in touch with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.
” We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” he added.
CrowdStrike says ‘aware of crashes’
Earlier on Friday, CrowdStrike told customers it was “aware of reports of crashes” of its software on the Microsoft Windows operating systems, CNN reported citing a company advisory.
In an update, Microsoft said “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions. Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress. More details can be found within the admin centre.”
CrowdStrike is best known for for investigating the Russian hack of Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 US election.
CERT-In issues advisory
Meanwhile, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory, CIAD-2024-0035, addressing the severe outage impacting Microsoft Windows systems.
According to CERT, the disruption is linked to the recent update of the CrowdStrike agent, Falcon Sensor. CERT said that to mitigate these issues, the CrowdStrike team has reverted the changes made in the recent update.
However, if hosts are still experiencing crashes and are unable to stay online to receive the necessary Channel File Changes, CERT-In recommends the below steps:
- First, boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment.
- Next, navigate to the directory C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike and locate the file matching the pattern “C-00000291*.sys”.
- Once identified, delete the file. Finally, reboot the host normally.
- Users are also advised to check for the latest updates and further instructions on the CrowdStrike support portal.
Microsoft outage
A massive global outage crippled operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the world on Friday following an update from CrowdStrike, a third-party software platform, on devices running Windows operating systems. Microsoft said it is aware of the issue and assured a resolution is forthcoming.
“We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
(With inputs from agencies)