HOUSTON — Austin-based cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike is linked to a massive global technology outage that caused major disruptions across industries from hospitals to banks to airlines and media outlets, leaving millions stranded or unable to do work.
The company bills itself as a cybersecurity firm that provides anti-cyberattack services to Microsoft and other large companies.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is an American cybersecurity firm based in Austin, Texas. Since being founded in 2011, they have made a name for themselves as one of the top firms providing protection; the company says its customers include 298 Fortune 500 companies, eight out of the top 10 financial services firms, seven out of the top 10 manufacturers, six of the top 10 healthcare providers and eight out of the top 10 food and beverage companies.
The company was also involved in investigations into cyberattacks such as the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the hack of the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 election.
Their anti-cyberattack software is integrated directly into the Windows operating system designed by Microsoft, meaning it's in a wide variety of devices across the globe, including the operating systems that run flight controls for major airlines, hospitals and banking systems.
How did CrowdStrike cause a global tech outage?
Because cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field with new threats regularly appearing, software designed to deal with those threats receives frequent updates.
CrowdStrike sent out one of those updates Thursday night, inadvertently including a bug in the code that caused disruptions in Windows-based systems, the chief executive of the company said.
Millions of Windows computers began experiencing a "bootloop," which the computer begins starting up, then is unable to finish and restarts the process without end, the outlet cybersecuritynews.com described.
For many, it produced the notorious "blue screen of death" - indicating a critical issue.
The bug exclusively broke Windows computers, meaning those using Linux or Mac-based operating systems were unaffected.
Is the problem fixed?
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted to X Friday around 5 a.m. saying a "defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," and that the incident is not security-related or a cyberattack.
Just after 10 a.m., he posted that CrowdStrike customers are protected and the issue was identified and a fix was deployed.
Locally, the outages affected Bush and Hobby airports causing planes to be grounded for several hours. United, American, Delta and Allegiant had all been grounded, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. All flights at George Bush Intercontinental and Hobby were not allowed to depart. By around 7:30 a.m. both airports said they were “fully operational.”
The Retail Insight Network also reported that the outage was impacting retailers' Point of Sale systems.
Outages impacted dozens of industries since Thursday evening. There is still no ETA from CrowdStrike on when service will be fully restored. The company said it will continue to provide updates on its website.