CrowdStrike explained to a normal person

by | Jul 23, 2024

Who is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike (website HERE) is a leading cybersecurity company providing Cyberdefence.

Their solutions include endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and incident response services.

 

What caused the global outage?

According to Reuters (HERE), a faulty update from CrowdStrike caused the global outage.

It triggered “blue screen of death” errors as described HERE.

The update was installed automatically and, on many systems, globally.

 

How great was the impact?

Approximately 8.5 million devices were affected by the faulty update according to TechTarget.

CrowdStrike serves over 24,000 customers, including nearly 60% of Fortune 500 companies.

Sky News reported that over 5,000 flights were cancelled globally due to the incident.

 

What did we learn from this?

  1. The incident highlights the need for rigorous testing of updates.
  2. “Out-of-band” communications such as SecuriCHAT are valuable during a crisis of this nature

 

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One more thing,

At Pfortner, we take Information security seriously.

We encrypt email, messaging and network communications to provide our clientele with uncompromised privacy.

If you need to protect sensitive communications, please see www.pfortner.co.za

Or send a blank email to info@pfortner.co.za , and we will get back to you.