The world has been hit by a global outage which is affecting thousands of PCs and has forced some businesses offline. Here’s what happened and how it’s going to get fixed.
PCs across the globe have been sent into meltdown today after a software update caused many to be hit by the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
The outage has created carnage with one expert calling it an “IT catastrophe”. With systems down, flights have been cancelled, supermarkets left unable to take payments and TV stations – including Sky – taken off the air.
It’s also affected key services such as the NHS and schools with some vital systems and apps suddenly going offline.
So what has happened and how will things get back to normal?
The gremlins began after the cyber security team at CrowdStrike pushed out an update to its systems.
This appears to have sent Microsoft PCs into a crash loop with thousands suddenly seeing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death on their PCs.
CrowdStrike has now confirmed the issue with the company saying: “Crowdstrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack.
Microsoft has also confirmed that the issue has not been caused by their own systems with the Redmond firm adding: “We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.”
CrowdStrike is a US-based firm that offers cyber security products and currently has over 24,000 customers across the globe. That’s why this has quickly become a worldwide problem with IT professionals scrambling to get systems back online.
So what happens now?
CrowdStrike says it has “identified and isolated” the glitch with a fix now deployed.
PCs that weren’t affected in the first place shouldn’t have any future issues but it might be more complicated for devices that have been hit by the bug.
According to the BBC, the fix can’t be pushed out from a central source with each PC needing to be rebooted manually.
That means it could take some time for all systems to be back up and running. It’s already been confirmed that Sky, American Airlines and the BBC have are fully operational again so things do appear to be getting fixed.
Here’s how devices are being fixed manually.
Workaround Steps:
• Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
• Navigate to the C:WindowsSystem32driversCrowdStrike directory
• Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.
• Boot the host normally.
