What is Crowdstrike, the company responsible for the global outage?
Updated: 6:18 AM CDT Jul 19, 2024
WITH BREAKING NEWS AFFECTING US HERE AT HOME AND NATIONALLY. AND GLOBALLY, WE ARE BEING TOLD BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS THAT THERE IS A GLOBAL INTERNET OUTAGE AND IT’S AN ISSUE AFFECTING EVERYTHING FROM AIRLINES, BANKS, AIRPORTS, MEDIA OUTLETS, INCLUDING US. RIGHT NOW, WE TOO ARE EXPERIENCING A LOT OF TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES BECAUSE OF THIS OUTAGE. IT’S SOMETHING THAT IS AFFECTING, LIKE I SAID, AIRLINES, BANKS, MEDIA OFFICES FROM US ALL THE WAY TO AUSTRALIA. I WANT TO GET RIGHT TO THE VERY LATEST THAT WE’RE GETTING WHEN IT COMES TO AIRLINES, AIRLINES AFFECTED AT THAT. WE KNOW AT THIS HOUR, DELTA AND UNITED FLIGHTS HAVE BEEN GROUNDED. AIRPORTS THAT ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED, LAGUARDIA, ASPEN AIRPORT THERE IN COLORADO, UM, MILWAUKEE, MITCHELL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, BOSTON, LOGAN, HARRY REID INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN LAS VEGAS, UM, THE US VIRGIN ISLANDS AND SONOMA COUNTY AIRPORT IN CALIFORNIA. WE’RE WORKING RIGHT NOW TO TRY TO GET IN CONTACT WITH PALM BEACH INTERNATIONAL, FORT LAUDERDALE AND OF COURSE, MIAMI AIRPORT TO SEE WHAT IT MEANS FOR US HERE AT HOME. SOMETHING ELSE AFFECTED. RIGHT NOW, WE’RE TALKING ABOUT 911 SERVICES. WE JUST FOUND OUT THAT PALM BEACH COUNTY 911 SERVICES ARE WORKING RIGHT NOW. SO IF YOU’RE IN PALM BEACH COUNTY AND YOU HAVE AN EMERGENCY AND NEED TO CALL 911, YOU CAN MAKE THAT CALL. HOWEVER, INDIAN RIVER COUNTY 911 IS EXPERIENCING COMMUNICATION MALFUNCTIONS AGAIN, WE ARE NOT CONFIRMING THAT THIS IS TIED TO THIS GLOBAL OUTAGE, BUT RIGHT NOW IT’S ALL COMING AT THE SAME TIME. IT INCLUDES BOTH MAIN 911 AND ADMINISTRATIVE PHONE LINES. SO IF YOU’RE WATCHING US RIGHT NOW FROM INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, THEY’RE TELLING US TO SHARE WITH YOU THAT YOU CAN STILL TEXT 911 IF YOU HAVE AN EMERGENCY. RIGHT NOW, WE DO NOT KNOW WHEN THIS WILL BE BACK UP. THIS ALL STARTED HAPPENING AROUND JUST AFTER 1 A.M. AGAIN, WE’RE TALKING AIRLINES, AIRPORTS, BANKS. UM, RIGHT NOW A SITUATION HERE, WE’RE ABLE TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET, BUT WE’RE TOLD THERE’S SOME KIND OF MALFUNCTION WHEN IT COMES TO A GLOBAL CYBER OUTAGE, AN INTERNET OUTAGE, AND MANY, MANY AREAS OF THE WORLD IMPACTING US. THE UNITED STATES THROUGH AUSTRALIA, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE THE VERY LATEST, AS WE ARE RIGHT NOW, IN THE SAME SITUATION AS MANY COMPANIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY. WE’RE MAKING PHONE CALLS, WE’RE GATHERING DETAILS. OUR REPORTERS ARE ALREADY ON THE STREETS HEADING TO LOCATIONS TO MAKE SURE THAT EVERYONE IS OKAY. WE’RE GOING TO HAVE THE VERY LATEST COMING U
What is Crowdstrike, the company responsible for the global outage?
Updated: 6:18 AM CDT Jul 19, 2024
The global computer outage affecting airports, banks and other businesses on Friday appears to stem at least partly from a software update issued by major U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, experts told CNN.CrowdStrike told customers early Friday that the outages were caused by “a defect found in a single content update of its software on Microsoft Windows operating systems, according to a post on X from CEO George Kurtz.The company’s engineers took action to address the problem, according to an advisory viewed by CNN, which told customers to reboot their computers and perform other actions if they were still having technical issues. The issue is specific to Falcon, one of CrowdStrike’s main software products, and is not impacting Mac or Linux operating systems, according to the advisory.CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software — used by numerous Fortune 500 companies — detects and blocks hacking threats. Like other cybersecurity products, the software requires deep-level access to a computer’s operating system to scan for those threats. In this case, computers running Microsoft Windows appear to be crashing because of the faulty way a software code update issued by CrowdStrike is interacting with the Windows system.The company said the outage was not caused by a security incident or a cyberattack. Kurtz, in his post, said the issue was identified and isolated, and engineers deployed an update to fix the problem.CrowdStrike is perhaps best known for investigating the Russian hack of Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 US election. But the multibillion-dollar firm does business around the world through software sales and investigations of major hacks.
The global computer outage affecting airports, banks and other businesses on Friday appears to stem at least partly from a software update issued by major U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, experts told CNN.
CrowdStrike told customers early Friday that the outages were caused by “a defect found in a single content update of its software on Microsoft Windows operating systems, according to a post on X from CEO George Kurtz.
The company’s engineers took action to address the problem, according to an advisory viewed by CNN, which told customers to reboot their computers and perform other actions if they were still having technical issues. The issue is specific to Falcon, one of CrowdStrike’s main software products, and is not impacting Mac or Linux operating systems, according to the advisory.
CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity software — used by numerous Fortune 500 companies — detects and blocks hacking threats. Like other cybersecurity products, the software requires deep-level access to a computer’s operating system to scan for those threats. In this case, computers running Microsoft Windows appear to be crashing because of the faulty way a software code update issued by CrowdStrike is interacting with the Windows system.
The company said the outage was not caused by a security incident or a cyberattack. Kurtz, in his post, said the issue was identified and isolated, and engineers deployed an update to fix the problem.
CrowdStrike is perhaps best known for investigating the Russian hack of Democratic National Committee computers during the 2016 US election. But the multibillion-dollar firm does business around the world through software sales and investigations of major hacks.