MICROSOFT CROWDSTRIKE OUTAGE – SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

MICROSOFT CROWDSTRIKE OUTAGE – SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

NEWS: How a software glitch disrupted global businesses

WHAT’S IN THE NEWS?

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-In, has issued a severity rating of ‘Critical’ for the incident; the mishap led to several users seeing the Blue Screen of Death – BSOD

Incident Overview:

   A faulty update from CrowdStrike's Falcon endpoint protection led to a global outage, causing Windows computers and servers to crash with a blue screen of death (BSOD) and boot loops.

Impact on Sectors:

  • Major disruptions in aviation, banking, telecommunications, hospitals, and other sectors.

Specific Issues in India:

  • Airports in Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mumbai faced severe disruptions.
  • Airlines had to manually check in passengers and issue handwritten boarding passes.

Technical Details:

  • The faulty update affected systems running Windows with the CrowdStrike Falcon agent

Response and Actions:

  • CrowdStrike withdrew the faulty update and issued a fix.
  • Microsoft’s Azure cloud service was also affected, and its outage spread globally.
  • CERT-In issued a “critical” severity rating for the incident.

Government and Corporate Responses:

  • The Reserve Bank of India noted that only a few banks using CrowdStrike were impacted, and the financial sector remained largely unaffected.
  • Maruti Suzuki reported a brief halt in operations but resolved the issue internally.

Possible Causes:

·         The glitch might be due to human error, a conflict with recent Windows updates, or other technical issues.

·         There is no evidence of a cyberattack, though further investigation is ongoing.

Definitions:

Boot Loop:

A situation where a computer keeps restarting without successfully starting up.

Blue Screen of Death (BSOD):

   An error screen displayed by Windows when a critical problem forces the system to restart.

 

CrowdStrike Falcon:

   A cybersecurity tool designed to detect and respond to threats on computers and servers.

Cyberattack:

   An attempt by hackers to damage or disrupt computer systems and networks.

CERT-In:

   The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, which helps manage and respond to cybersecurity incidents.

Malware:

   Malicious software designed to harm or exploit computers and networks.

Minidump:

    A file created by Windows that contains information about a system crash to help diagnose the problem.

Source: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/glitch-in-software-update-may-have-triggered-global-microsoft-crowdstrike-outage-experts/article68423175.ece