Over the past week, the tech world experienced a significant disruption due to a major outage caused by a software update from CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity company. This incident had widespread effects, grounding flights, disrupting emergency services, and causing payment systems to malfunction. In this session, we will delve into what exactly happened, and the ramifications of the outage.
What Exactly Happened?
The CrowdStrike outage stemmed from a security update that unfortunately led to severe problems for Microsoft devices and services. The update caused Microsoft systems, including its Azure cloud service, to crash or become non-functional. Despite initial fears, George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, clarified that this was not a security incident or cyberattack, but rather a technical mishap.
This glitch had far-reaching impacts, including:
- Airline Disruptions: Major airlines such as American, United, and Delta in the US, as well as Air France-KLM and Japan Airlines, experienced grounded flights and delays. Passengers faced long queues and manual check-ins at airports.
- Media Blackouts: Television networks like France’s TF1 and Canalt, and Comcast’s Sky News in the UK, were temporarily unable to broadcast.
- Business and Government Services: The outage highlighted the dependency of global businesses and government services on major tech companies for vital infrastructure.
The outage has been described as historic in scale, underscoring the vulnerabilities in our highly interconnected digital world.
Reassurance to Our Clients
While the CrowdStrike outage had a substantial impact, it’s important to note that ABI does not use CrowdStrike for our cybersecurity needs. Instead, we utilize Huntress.
In conclusion, while the recent CrowdStrike outage has been a significant event with wide-ranging implications, ABl remains committed to providing secure and dependable services. Our choice of Huntress as our cybersecurity provider is one of the many steps we take to ensure the safety and continuity of our clients’ operations.
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Thanks for reading!
Your ABI Tech team
