CrowdStrike Explains Friday Incident Crashing Millions of Windows Devices
Jul 24, 2024
Software Update / IT Outage
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike on Wednesday blamed an issue in its validation system for causing millions of Windows devices to crash as part of a widespread outage late last week. "On Friday, July 19, 2024 at 04:09 UTC, as part of regular operations, CrowdStrike released a content configuration update for the Windows sensor to gather telemetry on possible novel threat techniques," the company said in its Preliminary Post Incident Review (PIR). "These updates are a regular part of the dynamic protection mechanisms of the Falcon platform. The problematic Rapid Response Content configuration update resulted in a Windows system crash." The incident impacted Windows hosts running sensor version 7.11 and above that was online between July 19, 2024, 04:09 UTC and 05:27 UTC and received the update. Apple macOS and Linux systems were not affected. CrowdStrike said it delivers security content configuration updates in two ways, one via Sensor Content that's shippe...