The CrowdStrike Global Outage Has Left the World Scared
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The global IT outage last Friday affected less than 1% of Windows PCs, according to Microsoft.
- Things are mostly up and running again.
- That static fills us with dread, as we realize that a tiny update in less than 1% of PCs wrecked all that havoc.
The global CrowdStrike-Microsoft IT outage that temporarily paralyzed the world on Friday, July 19th, affected 8.5 million devices, leaving us worried and scared of a tech-oriented future.
July 19th, 2024, will go down as the day we came worryingly close to life imitating a Hollywood movie plot. Cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, had deployed a faulty update for its Falcon driver software for Windows PCs and servers.
According to Reuters, security experts believe that the faulty update did not undergo proper quality checks before deployment. Instead of making CrowdStrike’s clients feel more secure against malicious actors, the faulty code exposed them.
Little Spark Starting Big Fires
In a blog post, Microsoft estimated that the “update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than 1% of all Windows machines,” leaving them unable to properly restart. The problem affected mostly Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices, although Windows 7 and Windows 8 were still affected. But when you look at all the chaos that the global outage has caused, it does not feel like it’s just 1%.
One tiny faulty update to cybersecurity software exposed every organization/device that ran the Falcon sensor software, temporarily paralyzing global banks, airlines, hospitals, government offices, manufacturing, stock markets, and emergency services. It takes some time to wrap one’s mind around the magnitude of the situation.
Airports across the globe had to cancel 5,078 air flights. Reports of operational breakdowns at airports were pouring in from EVERY. SINGLE. COUNTRY. except for Russia and China which do not rely on American technology as much as the rest of the world due to sanctions and self-preference.
The finance sector also suffered from the global outage. As did Government offices, mostly in the US, including:
- NASA
- US Department of Homeland Security
- US Federal Trade Commission
- US National Nuclear Security Administration
- US Department of Justice
- US Department of Education
- US Department of Treasury
- US Department of State
- US Department of Motor Vehicles in 5 states and 1 district
- US election and voting registration databases in Arizona, South Dakota, Texas, and the State of Washington
- Emergency services in over 6 US states
The global outage also caused technical issues for ground transportation, the healthcare sector, and many media outlets. The outage also impacted the operations of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Never See Tech the Same Again
Throughout the age of information technology, we’ve witnessed several cybersecurity incidents of varying magnitudes, but never as big as this. It has brought us face-to-face with our reliance on technology and all the issues that stem from it.
One faulty CrowdStrike update that only affected less than 1% of Windows PCs worldwide caused a global outage so massive that it caused enough mayhem to possibly cost companies millions of dollars in damages.
How can we rest assured that our world won’t come crashing down around us in the blink of an eye because we trusted technology after this?
This one incident showed how our way of life makes us vulnerable. Forget the data collection and the targeted ads, emergency services were affected. What if this incident had happened during a hurricane watch?
Take the feeling you get when you get stuck in an elevator and amplify it over a million times. That’s what those moments felt like, especially when there was talk of a cyberattack.
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