CrowdStrike is blaming a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off last week’s global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air, and disrupted banks, hospitals, and retailers.
CrowdStrike outlined measures to prevent the recurrence of this problem, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where updates occur, and providing detailed information about planned updates. The company posted details online from its preliminary post-incident review of the outage, which caused chaos for many businesses utilizing its cybersecurity software services.
The issue involved an undetected error in the content/configuration update for its Falcon platform, affecting Windows machines. A bug in the content-validation system allowed problematic data to be deployed to CrowdStrike’s customers, triggering an unexpected exception that caused Windows operating system crashes. To prevent this, CrowdStrike is beefing up internal testing and implementing a new check to stop the deployment of problematic content.
CrowdStrike has stated that a significant number of the approximately 8.5 million computers that crashed are back in operation. Customers and regulators are awaiting a detailed explanation of what went wrong. The company plans to publicly release a full analysis once its investigation is complete. The outage, which lasted days, highlighted the world’s dependency on key providers of computing services and drew regulatory attention seeking more details.
Also, on Wednesday, CrowdStrike gained attention for sending out 10 Uber Eats gift cards to apologize for the disruption. A spokesperson said the gift cards were sent to teammates and partners assisting customers through the situation, but not to customers. Uber flagged the offering as potential fraud due to high usage rates, though details on the number of cards distributed and the timeline were not immediately provided.
Source: CrowdStrike blames bug for letting bad data slip through, leading to global tech outage.
