A recent update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike resulted in a significant outage on Friday, affecting businesses globally. The company acknowledged the issue and is currently in the process of rolling back the update that caused the problem. Despite widespread reports of technical difficulties, CrowdStrike stated that the outage was not a result of a hack or any malicious action.
Numerous industries, including airlines, banks, and telecom firms, reported issues following the update. American Airlines and the Dutch arm of Air France-KLM experienced disruptions due to a technology issue, forcing operations to be suspended. Additionally, Spain’s airport authority AENA warned travelers of delays caused by a computer system incident, while U.K. airline Ryanair faced disruption due to a third-party IT outage.
Banks and financial institutions worldwide also felt the impact of the outage. The London Stock Exchange reported technical issues with its data and news platform, impacting trading activities. German finance giant Allianz highlighted a major outage affecting employee logins, attributing the problem to an incident at CrowdStrike.
Visa reassured customers that its payment processing services were not affected by the outage. However, reports of individuals encountering difficulties in making payments surfaced, prompting the company to collaborate with financial institution clients to address any service disruptions. NBC Universal also experienced disruptions due to the CrowdStrike outage.
Omer Grossman, CIO at CyberArk, emphasized the severity of the damage caused by the outage, describing it as “dramatic.” He explained that the glitch resulted from a software update of CrowdStrike’s EDR product, causing the operating system to crash. Restoring functionality will be challenging as endpoints must be manually fixed due to the crash, a process expected to take days.
The CrowdStrike update outage had far-reaching consequences for businesses worldwide, affecting various industries and creating significant challenges in the recovery process. The incident serves as a reminder of the critical importance of robust cybersecurity measures to prevent and mitigate such disruptions.
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