CrowdStrike, a Texas-based cybersecurity company, caused one of the biggest global outages in recent times when it led to the disruption of several Microsoft services following an update to one of its products on Friday. However, it wasn't just Microsoft apps that were hit, but also those backed by its technologies, such as Azure. Services across different institutions around the world, including airports, banks and media outlets were reported to have been impacted, leading the flight delays, errors while booking tickets, broadcasting failure, and inability to make payments.
The havoc even drew attention from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who called it the “biggest IT fail ever”. As the curtain draws to a close on a certainly eventful day, here are 5 things to know about the Microsoft global outage.
Microsoft Global Outage: 5 Things to Know
- Root Cause: The problem developed following a ‘single content' update pushed by CrowdStrike for its Falcon Sensor software. According to CrowdStrike, the issue was attributed to the failure of the “csagent.sys” system file. On Windows laptop, Microsoft listed the error with the STOP code “PAGE_FAULT-IN-NONPAGED_AREA”.
- Errors Faced: Microsoft says the issue arose at 6 pm ET (3:30 am IST), with customers in its Central US area facing issues while accessing Azure services. PC users began facing the dreaded ‘blue screen of death' on their Windows-backed PCs. Restarting did not solve the issue, with the device getting stuck in a boot loop.
- Impact: Due to the CrowdStrike error, services across the world went down. Information technology (IT) companies, airports, banks and other sectors were reported to have been affected. Major airlines across the world suspended their flights, including Delta, United and American Airlines in the US. Akasa Air, Indigo, and other Indian airlines also issued statements about services going down. The problem also impacted gateway systems, with people in the UK reportedly unable to process card payments. Media outlets were also reported to face issues, with the UK's Sky News and CBBC and Australia's ABC News being some of the ones affected.
- Response: Microsoft revealed that several “mitigation actions” were in process, while it also focussed on redirecting impacted traffic to “healthy systems”. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz issued a statement informing that the root cause has been identified and patched. Kurtz revealed that the error was not due to a "security incident or cyberattack" but because of a defect in a single content update for the Windows platform.
- Temporary Workaround: For those who are still affected by the problem, CrowdStrike has suggested a workaround. Users can boot the Windows device into Safe Mode or open the Windows Recovery Environment, and navigate to the system settings. Deleting a file titled “C-00000291*.sys” is said to fix the issue.