A major cyber outage has affected technical services in many IT systems in countries around the world. The software glitch has disrupted services at the country's airlines, banks and supermarkets. Many flights were cancelled worldwide, as well as millions of systems in Australia and around the world were down. It is related to US cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike and its software Falcon Sensor.
What is CrowdStrike Falcon?
In fact, it is one of the largest cyber security vendors in the world, providing software services to thousands of businesses around the world to protect them from viruses and cyber attacks. The company is headquartered in Austin, Texas (USA) and has about 10 thousand employees. CrowdStrike Falcon is the company's software, it stays in the background on the corporate system, detecting any viruses and cyber threats.
How did the outage happen?
The outage caused a Blue Screen of Death to appear on Microsoft laptops and PCs, meaning employees and users were unable to access their systems. The outage began on Friday AEST and affected users in the US before reaching Australia. In a forum post, a CrowdStrike representative said: “We are aware of a widespread issue causing BSOD errors on Windows machines across various cloud editions.”
Why was Microsoft so affected?
Microsoft was not the source of the attack, but CrowdStrike's Falcon software is best used on Microsoft Windows systems, not Apple Macs, for example. Microsoft said in a statement on X that it was investigating the incident.
