At present, millions of computer users across the globe have only one question in mind, “What is the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error? The error is causing their computer systems to restart or shut down, and this further creates a hindrance in their work. Outages like these were severe. Not only is the workforce forking for companies getting impacted, airports are also facing troubles because of the Blue Screen of Death error. Not only this, windows computer having a wide user base across the globe, superstores, and other businesses are also getting impacted. In this regard, knowing what the issue actually was becomes important.
Here, we try to explain the issue.
The root cause of the problem has apparently been traced by Microsoft, as originating from a recent CrowdStrike update. The issue has been acknowledged by CrowdStrike. With this, it becomes important to answer two questions- What is CrowdStrike, and how is it related to the issue.
First things first, what is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company situated in Austin, Texas. It is generally used by government agencies, banks, airports, and huge organizations for the cyber security services. It is George Kurtz, former McAfee employee who founded the cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike.
The key focus of the company is to help organizations in managing their security. It helps other organization safeguard their sensitive date and systems. Now, it is important to note that CrowdStrike sells its solutions to high-profile organizations and not retail customers, and that is why the issue is not impacting personal Windows PCs.
Recently, George Kurtz, the CrowdStrike CEO has acknowledged the matter. He further said that the company is actively engaged in fixing the issue. He further explained that a "single content update for Windows hosts" is actually the root cause of the issue.
Here's how the CEO addressed the issue through the platform X.
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
George Kurtz also explained that the issue is not a cyberattack. Also, the problem is limited to Windows at present. Linux and Mac users are unaffected as of now.
The reason behind the crashes
The latest update by CrowdStrike to Falcon, which is a software having extensive system access, has been leading to system crashes.
Now, since the issue renders impacted the Windows machines inoperable. This means that bringing about yet another update to fix it is not possible. Thus, the systems impacted by the issue will require to be updated manually.
The company has not clarified any reasons behind the issue. Additionally, it has also not suggested any methods behind the release of the faulty update.
However, a workaround is what the company has given to fix the constant crashes in Windows PCs.
Yet, it is crucial to note that the solution needs to be applied manually to every system. This makes it quite a lengthy process for huge organizations having thousands of systems.
The impacts of the crash on the world
The Chief Information Officer at Cyber Ark, Mr. Omer Grossman expressed that the damage caused to business processes at the global front is "dramatic."
He further explained that the glitch is because of a software update of the EDR product of CrowdStrike. The EDR product is the ne that runs with huge privileges.. " A malfunction in this can, as we are seeing in the current incident, cause the operating system to crash.”
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