Tuesday, 19 November 2024

IT blunder by ‘Russia hacked the DNC’ firm CrowdStrike causes global chaos


A massive IT failure at CrowdStrike has disrupted travel, banking, and healthcare services worldwide. Flights were grounded as an IT outage left many computers displaying blue error screens. CrowdStrike, based in Austin, Texas, is a major cybersecurity service provider with nearly 24,000 customers, each a large organization.

(Article by Jack Montgomery republished from TheNationalPulse.com)

Infamously, it was hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to claim Russia had hacked its computers in 2016. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) relied on “evidence” supplied by the DNC-retained firm to launch its Russia hoax investigation.

CrowdStrike admits the global outages its customers have experienced stem from an update to its antivirus software, designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from malicious attacks. Microsoft is taking “mitigation action” to address the problem.

CrowdStrike claims the issue is down to “a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts” rather than a cyber-attack.

Despite CrowdStrike deploying a fix, the solution involves manually rebooting each affected device in safe mode, causing significant headaches for IT departments.

GLOBAL CHAOS. 

The tech failure first emerged in Australia and severely impacted the air travel industry, with over 3,300 flights canceled globally. Airports in Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Delhi also experienced disruptions. U.S. airlines, including United, Delta, and American Airlines, grounded their flights worldwide, and British airports saw delays with long queues at London’s Stansted and Gatwick.

The outage also affected payment systems, banking, and healthcare providers worldwide. Railway companies in Britain are warning passengers to expect delays, and Alaska’s 911 emergency service is facing disruption. Comcast’s Sky News was off the air for several hours.

The outage may delay employee payments.

Read more at: TheNationalPulse.com


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