When CrowdStrike Reminded Us of the Y2K Panic
At the dawn of the year 2000, everyone feared a computer catastrophe that ultimately did not happen. However, the recent CrowdStrike incident on professional installations reminded us of that era of digital panic. What Happened? Friday morning, around the world, Windows computers at large companies began displaying the « blue screen of death » and could no longer reboot. The cause: a faulty update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor, pushed at 4:09 UTC on July 18. This outage affected airports, grounding planes, banks, hospitals, transportation, media, and stores like Starbucks, which had to close. What is CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor? Falcon is endpoint detection and response (EDR) software. It monitors a computer’s operations and attempts to block any malicious activity. Used by about 29,000 companies worldwide, CrowdStrike is known for thwarting major cyberattacks and giving animal-themed names to famous hacker groups. Why Did This Happen? An update to Falcon caused Windows to crash. Alt...