Microsoft CrowdStrike outage

CrowdStrike CEO Responds to Outage

In its first statement following a significant Microsoft outage caused by an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz addressed the issue and the company’s response. Kurtz emphasized that the problem has been isolated and a fix has been deployed. He apologized for the outage’s impact on customers, noting that some systems may take time to fully recover.

The bug affected numerous entities worldwide, including stock exchanges, supermarkets, and flight operations, leading to the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, which causes systems to shut down or restart unexpectedly.

In a statement on X, George Kurtz assured that CrowdStrike is working closely with affected customers. He clarified that the issue was found in a single content update for Windows hosts, and that Mac and Linux systems were not impacted.

Emphasizing that the outage was not due to a security incident or cyberattack, Kurtz stated, “The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed. 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 are communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” he added.

Speaking on NBC News’ ‘Today’ program, Kurtz promised to ensure that every customer is “fully recovered.” He expressed deep regret for the impact caused to customers, travelers, and anyone affected by the outage. “Many of the customers are rebooting the system and it’s coming up and it’ll be operational… It could be some time for some systems that won’t automatically recover,” he said, but assured that the company “would make sure every customer is fully recovered.”

What Microsoft Said

In a statement on Friday, Microsoft reiterated its commitment to addressing the lingering impact on Microsoft 365 apps that are in a degraded state. “We remain committed to treating this event with the highest priority and urgency while we continue to address the lingering impact for the Microsoft 365 apps that are in a degraded state,” Microsoft said. “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.”

Workarounds

In an advisory, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) provided a workaround for affected users:

  • Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment.
  • Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory.
  • Locate and delete the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”.
  • Boot the host normally.

 

Several US airlines, including American, United and Delta, issued ground stops – an air traffic control measure that slows or grounds aircraft at a given airport – earlier as IT outages caused disruption across the globe.

This timelapse from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 below shows just how many flights were impacted.

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How badly were UK supermarkets affected?

Payment systems have been among the IT systems impacted by today’s disruption.

Morrisons said this morning it was experiencing “some issues” with payments in some stores, but around 40 minutes after it issued an update saying the problems had been fully resolved.

Posts on social media suggested some Waitrose stores were only taking cash payments for a time this morning.

The supermarket said it was briefly impacted earlier in the day, but it said this was limited to stores being unable to process contactless card payments, with chip and pin and cash payments still possible.

Asda, M&S, Tesco, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Iceland and Lidl all said their stores operated as normal.

Co-op said it didn’t experience any significant impact, and that cash and card payments were running as normal.

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Billboards in Times Square go blank

We can bring you some images now from New York City’s Times Square, where some billboards went blank during today’s IT outage.

Photos show black screens and “the blue screen of death” in place of the vibrant advertisements that typically light up the area.

Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, says a “handful” of the more than 100 billboards in the area remained offline earlier on Friday, AP reports.

He added that it’s unclear whether all the blackouts were related to the outage.