A massive Microsoft Windows BSOD (blue screen of death) outage has affected numerous companies worldwide, including airlines, broadcasters, and more. The issue stemmed from a faulty update from security firm CrowdStrike, causing PCs and servers to enter an unrecoverable boot loop. Although the update has been rolled back, many machines remain impacted.
“We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions,” CrowdStrike wrote in a pinned Reddit post. “We have identified a content deployment related to this issue and reverted those changes.” The company provided a workaround involving booting Windows into Safe Mode and deleting a specific driver.
The issue led to flight groundings for Delta, Frontier, and other airlines and disrupted operations at UK broadcaster Sky and the London Stock Exchange. Numerous Reddit users reported their companies being effectively offline due to the problem.
“Even if [CrowdStrike] fixed the issue causing the BSOD, I’m thinking how are we going to restore the thousands of devices that are not booting up,” one user noted. “Let me explain to someone who is not tech-savvy and is working from home how to boot their machine into safe mode,” another added.
IT managers from countries including Australia, Malaysia, Japan, India, and the Czech Republic described grappling with the issue. “Here in the Philippines, specifically in my employer, it is like Thanos snapped his fingers. Half of the entire organization [is] down due to the BSOD loop. Started at 2pm and is still ongoing. What a Friday,” one user commented.
CrowdStrike, a US-based security firm, provides real-time protection against security threats to corporations. Its key product, Falcon, offers “real-time indicators of attack, hyper-accurate detection, and automated protection” from threats. A CrowdStrike spokesperson indicated the issue likely originated with Falcon.
Adding to the disruption, Microsoft also experienced a separate outage with its Azure services and Microsoft 365 app suite. “Users may be unable to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services,” the company stated. It’s unclear if these outages are connected to the CrowdStrike problem.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz acknowledged the issue on X, attributing it to a defect in a content update for Windows hosts, and not a “security incident or cyberattack.” He added that “the issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.” However, there was no mention of a solution for machines currently stuck in a boot loop.
Mac and Linux hosts are unaffected, Kurtz noted. An identical statement was posted on CrowdStrike’s blog. So far, the company has not issued an apology for the incident.
Source: Engadget
