CrowdStrike, a cyber security firm that recently faced criticism, has released a detailed review of an incident that caused millions of Microsoft devices to crash on July 19. The firm attempted to release an update for its Falcon sensor on Windows hosts, which was intended to enhance cyber threat detection. However, the update caused Windows hosts running Falcon sensor 7.11 and above to crash.
The issue stemmed from a bug in the update validation process, which allowed problematic content to pass through and trigger crashes on Windows systems. The faulty update was live for over an hour, leading to widespread device crashes and disruptions, including delayed flights.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz issued an apology and reassured customers that steps are being taken to prevent such incidents in the future. The company has outlined a plan to improve the testing and validation processes for rapid response updates, as well as enhancing monitoring and customer control over update delivery.
Moving forward, CrowdStrike aims to prevent similar incidents by implementing stricter validation checks and staggered deployment of updates. Customers will also receive release notes for updates, providing greater transparency and control over their systems.