CrowdStrike Outage Summary

The CrowdStrike Outage is now among the biggest to ever occur, so what’s happening?

The issue was with CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, software that is intended to protect computers from attacks and malware. Like all computer protection software, it’s updated regularly to keep up with the latest threats.  Unfortunately, a recent update to Falcon Sensor had the opposite effect, instead causing blue screen of death on boot, rendering computers unusable.

Solidarity IT was unaffected by the outage, as was anyone subscribed to SentinelOne or to our Protect-IT package.

The update patch has since been pulled, but not before causing major IT outages affecting many organisations and industries, including critical operations such as airports, emergency services, and healthcare.

As this was caused by a faulty patch, people have queried whether it is worth patching computers that seem to be working properly, but the answer remains yes. Patches are a vital part of keeping security up-to-date and major incidents in the news have been a result of unpatched or unsupported software more than once, with the Wannacry attack on the NHS in 2017 being one of the most infamous.

Incidents such as the Crowdstrike Outage are rare but as patches can cause problems, companies managing major patches typically use a short trial period to check that there are no major issues or concerns before issuing instructions for installation.

If you have any questions about this incident or your IT security, just get in touch.