The Global CrowdStrike / Microsoft Outage – What You Need To Know

Microsoft building

Friday, July 19th 2024

Businesses around the world are in chaos this morning as mass reports of IT outages related to computers running Microsoft Windows come rolling in. These reports are related to a routine update from CrowdStrike containing a defect that affects the Windows operating system. This outage has forced a nationwide stop of air traffic due to communication issues, and affected many other big industries such as banks, broadcasting companies, hospitals, and supermarkets. This outage is not a security incident or cyberattack and is simply related to the update for Windows hosts.

George Kurtz, CrowdStrike CEO said, “The system was sent an update, and that update had a software bug in it and caused an issue with the Microsoft operating system. Our systems are always looking for the latest attacks from these adversaries that are out there.”

CrowdStrike became aware of the issue and rolled out another software update to fix it. Some systems have been able to install this update automatically, while others require manual assistance. IT teams, including those at Applied Tech, have been working since the early hours of the morning to get affected computers back in working order. Microsoft has also confirmed awareness of the issue. This outage is one of the most widespread IT disruptions that has happened in recent years, affecting most businesses in one way or another.


Workaround steps have been provided by CrowdStrike for affected systems:

1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode of the Windows Recovery Environment
2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory.
3. Locate and delete the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”.
4. Boot the host normally

CrowdStrike is actively working to support customers through this issue.

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